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Zuleika Dobson
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Zuleika Dobson - Background and Resoruces
Oops, sorry. I posted this link in the wrong thread. Project Gutenberg has copies of Zuleika Dobson in various formats here:https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1845
And Librivox has an audio version with a reader that seems like he'll be pretty great.
I'm a big fan of Barnes and Noble classics series, and was happy to see that they have an ebook version of Zuleika Dobson. And for only $1.99.
Good review here but with Spoilers:http://gu.com/p/3q53y
Victorian Web has various bits on Beerbohm and his work:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/mb/
He was also a great caricaturist. A few here:
http://giam.typepad.com/100_years_of_...
Thanks Madge. I'll look at the first two links once I've read the book, but the caricatures are fantastic!!
Renee wrote: "And Librivox has an audio version with a reader that seems like he'll be pretty great."Oh, he does sound good. I tried a bit of Bel-Ami in English on Librivox and the reader was so slow I was screaming at my computer after five sentences!! It's a great project, but readers vary massively.
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For those who think that information about an author's life is relevant to understanding his work (the idea that an author's work can't be understood purely on its own merits -- although as an advocate of aesthetic criticism, which holds that art should be judged on the basis of beauty alone and not on issues of external criteria, such as historical context, Beerbohm would presumably have held that his works should be judged without reference to his own life), Sir Beerbohm's life has some potential nooks and crannies which have led over the years to some possibly interesting speculations which those who like to consider such matters may want to consider.For example, although he claimed to have been a gentile, there are many who believe that he was in fact a Jew, and he did marry two Jewish wives. Marry he did, but there is a question whether either of the marriages was consummated (his second marriage took place shortly before his death at age 84), whether he was a homosexual (active or latent) or whether he was simply asexual. He was a friend of (and influenced by) Oscar Wilde, which may or may not have a bearing on his sexuality.
Perhaps surprisingly for a widely respected author who was knighted for his accomplishments, not much is known, or at least not much has been written, about his life, and indeed the author of a recent biography, "Max Beerbohm -- A Kind of Life" wrote early in the work that he would respect his subject's wish that his private life remain a mystery, and focus only on his public life, writings, and drawings. But as the Publisher's Weekly review notes, "Although Hall inexplicably finds "comfort" in staying "out of Max's private life," he occasionally finds himself guiltily (and almost repugnantly) flirting with such personal issues as Beerbohm's rumored homosexuality and his disavowal of his purported Jewishness."
For what, if anything, this is worth in understanding Zuleika Dobson.
Everyman wrote: "For what, if anything, this is worth in understanding Zuleika Dobson. ."Possibly nothing, as you suggest. However it's nice to know a little bit about the person who spent hours creating something for us to enjoy and discuss years later in a format Beerbohm could never possibly have imagined.
So thank you for sharing this :-)))
Thanks for all the details, Everyman!
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As the sub title of ZD is An Oxford Love Story It may help to know something about Oxford and its world famous university whose first colleges were founded in the 13thC:http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisatio...
With its many buildings of golden Cotswold stone, it is known as the 'city of gleaming spires' and is particularly beautiful at sunset. Some pics here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal...
Mention is made of Sir Christopher Wren's spectacular Sheldonian theatre which is fronted by a row of busts of Roman Emperors atop columns, very bizarre, and spooky at night. Wikipedia gives a nice little history. The best pics are on Google Images which show the magnificent auditorium:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldo...
Punting on the River Isis, a tributary of the Thames and also known as the Cherwell, is a popular sport with Oxford University students (and tourists) and one in which our characters indulge. Here is something about it:
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eights...
Here is Beerbohm's caricature of Zuleika (don't read the article, it contains spoilers, just look at the pic).http://www.jjbooks.com/illustration-s...
MadgeUK wrote: "As the sub title of ZD is An Oxford Love Story It may help to know something about Oxford and its world famous university whose first colleges were founded in the 13thC:"For a somewhat more jaundiced view of Oxford, there's Hardy's Jude the Obscure.
Everyman wrote: "For those who think that information about an author's life is relevant to understanding his work (the idea that an author's work can't be understood purely on its own merits -- although as an advo..."If these rumors were spread while he was alive, that might have affected his satirical outlook. Right now the rumors look to be so vague and unsupported that it just sounds like celebrity bashing to me... something the Enquirer would feed on.
Beerbohm was a close friend of Wilde and Beardsley, well known homosexuals and aesthetes. In sending up both effeminacy and aestheticism, as he did, he may have been covering his back or being critical. We will never know.
Everyman wrote: For a somewhat more jaundiced view of Oxford, there's Hardy's Jude the Obscure."I seem to remember that your father went to Oxford Everyman (and your grandfather?), what sort of a view did they have?
MadgeUK wrote: "I seem to remember that your father went to Oxford Everyman"Bite your tongue. Oxford indeed. He wanted a good education, so of course he went to Cambridge.
Sorry, got the wrong one:) Not much to choose between them which is why they are termed Oxbridge.
MadgeUK wrote: "Sorry, got the wrong one:) Not much to choose between them..."You really like starting fights, don't you? [g]
Everyman wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Sorry, got the wrong one:) Not much to choose between them..."You really like starting fights, don't you? [g]"
It's fun watching this parlay from across the pond :)
Janice George (JG) wrote: "It's fun watching this parlay from across the pond..."It's an across the pond exchange, but I'm on your side of the pond!
Everyman wrote: "Janice George (JG) wrote: "It's fun watching this parlay from across the pond..."It's an across the pond exchange, but I'm on your side of the pond!"
But apparently your heart (or at least your loyalty), lies in Cambridge :)
Janice George (JG) wrote: "But apparently your heart (or at least your loyalty), lies in Cambridge :)"
Always and ever. One of my wonderful childhood memories is of going with my father to Cambridge, of seeing his rooms there when he was a student (he claimed it seemed to be the same bed and even the same mattress he slept on!), of getting permission to climb to the roof of the Kings College chapel where he used to go from time to time but which was officially closed by the 1950s, and generally of walking the same paths and sitting in the same lecture halls he lived through. Wonderful times.
Thank you for sharing that charming remembrance.
Everyman wrote: "Janice George (JG) wrote: "But apparently your heart (or at least your loyalty), lies in Cambridge :)"
Always and ever. One of my wonderful childhood memories is of going with my father to Cambr..."
All boys should have such pleasant and lasting memories of times spent with their fathers. You should count yourself blessed.
Janice George (JG) wrote: "All boys should have such pleasant and lasting memories of times spent with their fathers. You should count yourself blessed."Thanks. I do. I had a wonderful childhood, with a stay-at-home mother, a father who was always there for us when he got home from work, good schools, an inter-racial (rare for the 1940s and 50s) intentional community of about 70 families with lots of open space and community woodlands and a stream with a good old swimming hole where we children (lots my age) were free to wander anywhere and bicycle (no helmet, of course) miles to the nearest store for ice cream cones in the summer. It was as ideal a growing up as I could imagine. I am enormously grateful to my parents and the other families in the community (still going strong) for the experience of growing up there.
Everyman wrote: "It was as ideal a growing up as I could imagine. I am enormously grateful to my parents and the other families in the community (still going strong) for the experience of growing up there..."An idyllic childhood. You are to be envied.
Janice George (JG) wrote: "An idyllic childhood. You are to be envied. "Yes. It's a real shame that society has moved to a point where almost all parents are now afraid to give their children even remotely the degree of freedom I was given.
If my parents tried to raise me today they way they did then, they might have been found guilty of child neglect and my sister and I packed off to foster care:
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2015/03/...
Speaking of Cambridge and Oxford, does anyone know of a good book on the history of the universities? I've looked online but it is difficult to tell. And my local library doesn't seem to have one.
Lynnm wrote: "Speaking of Cambridge and Oxford, does anyone know of a good book on the history of the universities? I've looked online but it is difficult to tell. And my local library doesn't seem to have one."Sorry, I don't.
Everyman wrote: "Janice George (JG) wrote: "An idyllic childhood. You are to be envied. "Yes. It's a real shame that society has moved to a point where almost all parents are now afraid to give their children ev..."
I agree. Luckily, my children grew up in Hawaii... barefoot freedom :)
I had been reading the book from a Gutenberg file, but also requested a dead tree copy from the library. I came today, and I found that it has 80 original illustrations by Beerbohm himself. It's fun to see how he personally envisioned the characters; usually you only see how an illustrator interprets a book. If you can get hold of a copy, I recommend it.
I have the same edition, Everyman! Lots of fun.
Everyman wrote: "Janice George (JG) wrote: "But apparently your heart (or at least your loyalty), lies in Cambridge :)"
Always and ever. One of my wonderful childhood memories is of going with my father to Cambr..."
Lovely memories Everyman. Did it not inspire you to go to Cambridge Uni yourself?
(I too had an idyllic childhood though with both parents spending long hours in munitions factories during the war. We lived by a river and had two canoes in which I spent hours paddllng upstream and down. When they had time off we took camping gear and paddled as far as we could get from our smaĺl town, occasionally to the sea 100 miles away. One day my father and I were pursued by a German bomber pilot discharging his load into the river behind us so that he could get home. Exciting! I became a strong long distance swimmer and swam the 10 mile length of Lake Windermere to public acclaim when I was 12. Though an only child I was happy and healthy and populated my imaginary world with characters from the many books I read. I think I cope well with being on my own a lot today because of those times of independence and self sufficiency when my parents were at work.)
'Like Beerbohm’s Duke of Dorset, Oscar Wilde was a fastidious dandy, poet and a Victorian Socrates who was fluent in Latin and ancient Greek. Zuleika Dobson even makes references to the ‘Doric mode’, echoing the homosexual allusions in Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Some of the Duke’s qualities, such as his punctuality, are inversions of Wilde’s traits.During Wilde’s lifetime, Beerbohm exhibited grotesque images of the man he’d once called the ‘Divinity’, and Beerbohm continued to publish satirical pieces about Wilde after Wilde’s imprisonment and death. Oxford was where both Wilde and Beerbohm created their public personas, and Wilde returned there to dazzle the undergraduates, just as he himself had once been dazzled by John Ruskin, Walter Pater and Cardinal Newman.' J D Eĺveson.
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I lived alone through my late 20s to my 40s. I think one of the most helpful skills to have is that of being alone, but not lonely.
MadgeUK wrote: "Lovely memories Everyman. Did it not inspire you to go to Cambridge Uni yourself? "I wasn't ready for three years across the ocean at that age, nor were my parents up for the cost. And by the time I was in 11th grade I was already totally committed to the St. John's (ours, not yours) approach.
MadgeUK wrote: "I became a strong long distance swimmer and swam the 10 mile length of Lake Windermere to public acclaim when I was 12. "You did better than I did. I only swam the 7 mile length of China Lake, in Maine.
However, I am seriously jealous of you being able to holiday on Lake Windermere as a child, since I have a love affair with those lakes that Arthur Ransome wrote about so wonderfully. I assume you know that he went to school in Windermere, and that Rio in the Swallows and Amazons books is believed to have been based on Bowness-on-Windermere, and Cormorant Island was based on Lake Windermere's Silver Holme Island. I hope you appreciate how blessed you were to have known first hand those locations that inspired Ransome.
My eldest son now lives in the Lake District Everyman and I have visited not only Windermere and all the other Lakes but Coniston Water upon which Ransome mainly based The Swallows and Amazons. It now has a popular tourist centre on and around Peel island, which was where 'Secret Harbour' on 'Wild Cat' island was. I also climbed 'Kanchenjunga' or Coniston Old Man several times in my younger days, when I regularly youth hostelled in the area. Bowness-on- Windermere is a great place to have a good English tea after a fell walk. A Victorian Steam Yacht still plies Coniston Water and does tours of the S&A locations. You can also hire boats like the ones the children used and row out from Peel Island as they did.http://www.visitcumbria.com/arthur-ra...
http://www.english-lakes.com/lake_con...
John Ruskin's house, Brantwood, is also on Coniston Water and can be visited, as can Wordsworth's house, Dove Cottage, on nearby Grasmere. The Lake District was a very popular destination for the Victorians.
MadgeUK wrote: The Lake District was a very popular destination for the Victorians. "It was indeed. And for good reason.
What a pity you did not visit there when you were in England. Far more fun for a boy to row on Coniston Water than to visit Cambridge University methinks.Did you visit anywhere else of note when you were here? Austen's Bath perhaps? Even Bronte's Yorkshire, just up the road from Cambridge.
You say I wasn't ready for three years across the ocean at that age...
Yet you were at boarding school in England at a younger age which must have been more difficult?
An aerial view of the Lake District, England's largest National Park:Lake District National Park from Above - Our Best…: http://youtu.be/-gyjDNFSEq0
And a 'Literary Walk' based on the Swallows and Amazons:
Swallows and Amazons: http://youtu.be/eOmMxh5h0_k
Janice George (JG) wrote: "It's fun watching this parlay from across the pon..."
It's a tennis match that's been running many years, even before we moved to Goodreads. Makes the Pond start boiling over.
Everyman wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Sorry, got the wrong one:) Not much to choose between them..."You really like starting fights, don't you? [g]"
What's [g]?
Lynn #31: These two more recent histories might suit:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colleges-Camb...
MadgeUK wrote: "Lynn #31: These two more recent histories might suit:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/17......"
Thanks, Madge! They both look great. I'm going to order them this weekend.
I never made it to Oxford, but I loved Cambridge last time I was in England. I think every college should look like Cambridge (and I'm sure Oxford as well).
The only thing that I felt bad about is that just like Harvard, there are so many tourists that I feel sorry for the students. Who wants a lot of tourists hanging around campus?
Please post spoiler warnings where appropriate.