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Cate Blanchett has signed on to star in a theatrical production of Anton Chekhov’s The Present. In the past, the two-time Academy Award winner (pictured, via) has acted in several literary-themed movies including the Lord of the Rings franchise, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Cinderella.

Here’s more from The New York Times: “The Present, also known as Platonov, centers on Anna Petrovna, who is celebrating her 40th birthday at her summer home in the country. She holds a party that includes uncomfortably mismatched collection of characters. Chekhov wrote it as a young medical student in the 1880s but it went nowhere and the playwright put it aside. It was unearthed in a Moscow bank vault in 1920, 16 years after his death.”

Deadline reports this play will mark Blanchett’s debut on Broadway. Starring alongside her will be Richard Roxburgh. Andrew Upton, Blanchett’s husband, adapted Chekhov’s piece. John Crowley, the director behind the Oscar-nominated film Brooklyn, has agreed to take the helm on this project. At this point in time, neither the New York City-based venue nor the opening date have been announced. (via Theater Mania)

Defining “privacy” has proven akin to a search for the philosopher’s stone. None of the numerous theories proposed over the years seems to encompass all the varied facets of the concept. In considering the meaning of privacy, it can be fruitful to examine how a great artist of the past has dealt with aspects of private life that retain their relevance in the Internet age.

The post A Chekhovian view of privacy for the internet age appeared first on OUPblog.

“Don’t discuss the writer’s life. Never speculate about his intentions.” Such were the imperatives when writing literary criticism at school and university. The text was an absolute object to be dissected for what it was, with no reference to where it came from. This conferred on the critic the dignity of the scientist. It’s surprising they didn’t ask us to wear white coats.

The post The question of belonging appeared first on OUPblog.

Sir William Osler, the great physician and bibliophile, recommended that his students should have a non-medical bedside library that could be dipped in and out of profitably to create the well rounded physician. Some of the works mentioned by him, for example Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne is unlikely to be on most people’s reading lists today. There have been several recent initiatives in medical schools to encourage and promote the role of humanities in the education of tomorrow’s doctors. Literature and cinema has a role to play in making doctors more empathetic and understanding the human condition.

My idiosyncratic choice of books is as follows.

Firstly, I start with a work by the most respected physician of the twentieth century, Sir William Osler himself. The work I choose is Aeqanimitas, published in 1905 and is a collection of essays and addresses to medical students and nurses with essays ranging in title from “Doctor and Nurse,” “Teacher and Student,” “Nurse and Patient,” and “The Student Life”. They are as relevant today as the day they were penned with a prose style combining erudition and mastery of language rarely seen in practicing physicians. Osler was the subject of the great biography, written by the famous neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing, who was to win a Pulitzer prize for his efforts. (I am not including this biography on my list, however.)

Anton Chekhov is included in my list for his short stories ( he was also a successful playwright). Chekhov was a qualified Russian doctor who practiced throughout his literary career, saying medicine was his lawful wife and literature his mistress. In addition to a cannon of short stories and plays, he was a great letter writer with the letters, written primarily while he traveled to the penal colony in Sakhalin. He was so moved by the inhumanity of the place, that these letters are considered to be some of his best. Chekhov succumbed to tuberculosis and died in 1904, aged only 44 years.

William Somerset Maugham, the great British storyteller was once described by a critic as a first rate writer of the second rank. Maugham suffered from club foot and was educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, and St. Thomas’s hospital, London where he qualified as a doctor. His first novel Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897 describes his student experience of midwifery work among the slums of Lambeth led him to give up medicine and earn a living writing. He became a prolific author of novels, short stories, and plays. His autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage describes his medical student years at St. Thomas’s Hospital. Many of his stories and novels were turned into successful films.

Another medical student from the United Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital who never practiced as a doctor ( although he walked the wards of Guy’s Hospital and studied under the distinguished surgeon Astley Cooper), was John Keats, who lived a tragically short life, but became one of the greatest poets of the English language. His first poem “O Solitude,” published in The Examiner in 1816, laid the foundations of his legacy as a great British Romantic poet. Poems the first volume of Keats verse was not initially received with great enthusiasm, but today his legacy as a great poet is undisputed. Keats died, aged 25, of tuberculosis.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the famous North American nineteenth-century physician, poet and writer, and friend and biographer of Ralph Waldo Emerson, popularized the term “anaesthesia,” and invented the American stereoscope, or 3D picture viewer. Perhaps his best known work is The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table his 1858 work dealing with important philosophical issues about life.

In Britain over a century later, in 1971, the distinguished physician Richard Asher published a fine collection of essays, Richard Asher Talking Sense which showcase his brilliant wit, verbal agility and ability to debunk medical pomposity. His writings went on to influence a subsequent generation of medical writers.

In the United States, another great physician and essayist was Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon whose accessible 1994 work How We Die became one of the twentieth centuries great books on this important topic a discourse on man’s inevitably fate.

Two modern authors next. The popular American writer Michael Crichton was a physician and immunologist before becoming an immensely successful best-selling author of books like Five Patients, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, and Jurassic Park, which was of course turned into a very popular film by the American film director Stephen Spielberg.

Khaled Hosseini the Afghan-born American physician turned writer is a recent joiner of the club of physician-writers, having achieved great fame with his books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I suppose we must finally include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the Scottish physician and author. His stories of the sleuth Sherlock Holmes have given generations pleasure and entertainment, borne of the sharp eye of the masterful physician in Conan Doyle.

Heading image: Books. Public Domain via Pixabay

The post 10 medically-trained authors whose books all doctors should read appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Yesterday we had a fabulous Children’s Literary Salon at the library with Jules Feiffer, Laurie Keller, Nick Bruel, and Dave Roman.  Afterwards we swapped stories and someone started to tell me that once Maurice Sendak paired with the Pilobolus Dance Theater for a theatrical presentation.  And since this is the 21st -century I was able to assess the veracity of this thanks to a handy dandy site going by the name of “Youtube”.  As you can see, tis true.

I heard about this next video at a work holiday party this week.  Hanging out with reference librarians has its advantages.  For example, I might not have paid attention to this video featuring one of our resident Cullman scholars had it not been for the fact that the man is translating something utterly unique.  It seems that back in the day Anton Chekhov wrote a Jules Verne parody.  Yep.  He wrote a story where he claimed to have found a lost Jules Verne tale, and then he had his brother illustrate it.  Mighty fun and silly and not the kind of thing you might expect from the guy behind The Seagull.

Ed Spicer has a regular series where he interviews various authors and illustrators (with the full list here).  And one of those folks is Atinuke, the woman behind the Anna Hibiscus and The No. 1 Car Spotter books.  I seethe with envy that Ed got to meet her.  That voice . . . oh, that voice.  She also covers why she doesn’t call the location in her books “Nigeria” rather than “Africa”.

Zoe, fear not.  I’m looking forward to your interview with the woman as well.

Just think.  There are 21-year-olds out there who can drink and drive and vote and have lived their entire lives without ever knowing a world in which The Simpsons did not exist.  Just take that in for a moment.  I heard that Neil Gaiman was on an episode and though The Simpsons ain’t what it once wuz, I took a gander.  Yeah, I’m one of those people who feel the show jumped the shark 13 seasons ago.  In this particular episode it’s a pity they still can’t tell the difference between children’s and young adult literature, but I’m kind of loving the take on writing books for kids.  The barely obscured Alloy Entertainment reference is pretty amusing and there’s an R.L. Stine joke.  Bonus.

(How’d The Apothecary get a shout-out amongst those fake books in the screen shot here?)

Finally, for our off-topic video, I may not be running out to buy its app anytime soon, but this brand new and second Marcel the Shell with Shoes On video just sorta, kinda, in a way makes my day.  Yep.  It really does.

Michael Chekhov – nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov - was an esteemed Russian-American actor, director and acting teacher. Among those who studied with him were Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood, Anthony Quinn, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Palance, Lloyd Bridges, and Yul Brynner. Constantin Stanislavski, with whom Chekhov collaborated at the Moscow Art Theatre, referred to him as his ‘most brilliant student.’

I had the good fortune to listen to Joanna Merlin, president of the Michael Chekhov Association – speak about her mentor last week. (MICHA will be one of the theatre companies in residence at our Writers Conferences next summer.)

I have long been aware of the overlap between the dramatic and writing arts, but something Joanna said struck me as particularly relevant.

One of Chekhov’s valued concepts was that of the ‘four brothers’: ease, beauty, form and wholeness. As I listened to Joanna describe these elements with respect to art, I realized they were directly transferable to children’s literature.

Ease – Who hasn’t marveled at the ease of Dr. Seuss’s verse, or Jules Feiffer’s line? When a book really sings, doesn’t it seem effortless? Like it just rolled off the author’s pen? Doesn’t it make us think: That looks so easy! I could do that!

Beauty – From Kenneth Grahame to Gennady Spirin to Jon J Muth, there’s no denying the beauty in children’s book art. But there’s beauty in text, too… Whether it’s an exquisitely crafted message, mastery of language or authenticity of voice, there are times when the stellar narrative of a children’s book can make one weep.

Form – Thirty two pages, one thousand words or less. There’s no denying that picture books have form. The challenge is how to tell that story with a richness of character and plot that compels the reader to turn the page… within the confines of that form. Martha Grahame said “The aim of technique is to free the spirit.” I would amend that to say, “Within the confines of form, anything is possible.”

Wholeness – Beginning, middle, end. Problem, crisis, resolution.  Picture books travel a great distance in a thousand words or less… and the good ones provide a complete story, and a wholly satisfying journey.

Michael Chekhov wrote and published a few great books on acting, but never any children’s books. I suspect that, had he chosen to, he could have penned one with ease, beauty, form and wholeness.

As Melville House releases The Duel novella series, they have added enhanced content to the print books–launching their HybridBook project.

Print readers can can download additional digital content for free using a QR code or URL included inside the print book. These “Melville House Illuminations” will sometimes be longer than the book itself.

Publisher Dennis Johnson explained in the release: ”The Illumination for the HybridBook version of Anton Chekhov’s The Duel contains an essay on dueling by Thomas Paine, poems by Lord Byron, philosophy by Nietzsche, an anti-dueling church sermon, an argument in favor of dueling by a U.S. Senator, and the rules to the game of vint—a game that plays a role in the plot … And there’s so much more—maps, cartoons, recipes, photographs, paintings—to enhance the reader’s experience.”

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