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Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Leo Tolstoy embodies the most extraordinary contradictions. He was a wealthy aristocrat who preached the virtues of poverty and the peasant life, a misogynist who wrote Anna Karenina, and a supreme writer who declared, "Literature is rubbish." From Tolstoy's famously bad marriage to his enormously successful career, Troyat presents a brilliant portrait that reads like an epic novel written by Tolstoy himself.

I've carted this book about for twenty-six years. In earlier attempts to read to the end I've gotten so far as page 186, because, I suspect, I read on p.168: "[L]ittle by little, as the woman becomes Poet, biography must shift its principal focus from the person to that Voice of the verse, for it was in her poetry and not in the world that ED deliberately decided to 'live'." Of course, this is nonsense - from my perspective. I'm persuaded that ED did not lead a disembodied existence for the thirty-six years of earthly life that remained to her once she had chosen poetry as her vocation. Moreover, although I didn't witness the event, I believe that her family buried her earthly remains on May 19, 1886. And there was and is that rather annoying and off-putting presumption of the gatekeeper/Redeemer that Wolff adopts for the printed page, as in "No one cometh unto Miss Dickinson, but by me."But I am not now the same person who bought a copy of Wolff's book in 1986. And for that I am most grateful. Now I can just about ignore authorial arrogance - having labored sporadically with biography myself for nearly thirty years, I understand and accept that such hazards are realized - with certain notable exceptions - Richard Sewall, for example. And now I pose the question to myself: What biographical facts does Wolff's work establish? How can the results of Wolff's labor enhance the sense of ED that I have created for myself over the years of my engagement with that extraordinarily gifted and preternaturally brave person, as heroic as Homer's depiction of Odysseus.And that approach to Wolff's book has paid munificent dividends.My sense is that Wolff's reading of the poetry that ED composed before 1862 - from my perspective much fuller and richer than any reading that appears in Vendler's compendium - provides an entirely plausible explanation of ED's choice of vocation. It seems to me that one could select and integrate several hundred pages of Sewall and Wolff and thereby produce a book that documents highly persuasive answers to questions - how and under what conditions did ED choose poetry as vocation? Highly significant biographical questions, I would say. [I suspect, however, that choice had little to do with her actions. How could she have "chosen" differently? An impossibility, so far as I can tell.] Wolff's readings of all of ED's poetry might also serve as perfectly splendid hypotheses regarding the trajectory of ED's inner life. Her poems document certain events of her inner life - as do her letters. I say events, because her poems do not represent a complete transcript of the contents of her mind over time, but rather single events separated by more or less lengthy intervals that together might represent a "trajectory." [I do wish I could avoid this metaphor - but for now I'm at a loss to state what I think I mean by this word.]I note, however, that Wolff does not appear to be overly scrupulous with chronology. That's understandable because those who have been, first Johnson and then Franklin, have produced very different sequences of events - from the bits and pieces of evidence that they employed to give us the best numbering and dating that we have. As a result Wolff describes the course of ED's inner life that I can't believe entirely, because the poems she adduces as evidence of sequence don't correspond to events in time as Johnson, whose chronology she had but dismissed, described or as Franklin asserts in his revision of Johnson's chronology. So I suspect that ED's inner life was much more various and complex than Wolff's account allows. Hardly a surprise. And Wolff admits as much near the end of her book (p. 504): "In the days of her youth, ED's religious attitudes were surely dominated by defiance and anger, yet even in those early days there had been pensive moments of hope and trust in the Lord - never enough to suffuse her with faith or to conversion, but enough to find some expression in the poetry. In those early years the Voice of faith was faint in both religious and aesthetic terms ... As the years passed, however, the balance shifted, at first only slightly, but more and more as time went by. By the mid-1860s or early 1870s, well before Father's death, a new poetry of faith had emerged." Why then didn't this perspective inform nearly 300 pages of her reading of poems that ED composed in those early years? Oh, never mind. It's there, here and there. So now I am persuaded that someone could devote a lifetime of study to ED, the results of which could be a biography that traces and juxtaposes events in ED's inner and outer lives - with uncertainties admitted and plainly stated. Someone who would give us a biography of ED to stand with Joseph Frank's life of Dostoyevsky (five volumes) or Brian Boyd's Nabokov. As for me I have purchased Franklin's variorum edition of ED's poems, and I think I'll devote a substantial number of the years of this life that remain to me in the company of ED and H. D. Thoreau.Wouldn't it be paradise enough to spend an eternity or two listening to a conversation between ED and Margaret Fuller? But then again an eternity or two might not be long enough for ED to get a moment's free air time. Well, then three or four eternities.

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire -- both scientists and scholars -- and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun -- or fight them and be destroyed.

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother - the leader of a strange religious cult - and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes "her arms".

A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.

A day in the lives of two convenience clerks named Dante and Randal as they annoy customers, discuss movies, and play hockey on the store roof.

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After awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins who betrayed her.

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A lovelorn screenwriter becomes desperate as he tries and fails to adapt 'The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orlean for the screen.

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A laconic, chain-smoking barber blackmails his wife's boss and lover for money to invest in dry cleaning, but his plan goes terribly wrong.

Mulholland Drive is a 2001 surrealist neo-noir mystery film written and directed by David Lynch and starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Mark Pellegrino, and Robert Forster. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux).

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Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957), collectively known as the Coen brothers (), are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Their most acclaimed works include Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers (2004) Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing editing credits under an alias, Roderick Jaynes. They have been nominated for 13 Academy Awards together, and individually for one award each, winning Best Original Screenplay for Fargo and Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men. The duo also won the Palme d'Or for Barton Fink (1991).

The Fellowship of the Ring embark on a journey to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron's reign over Middle-earth.

A traveling theater company gives its audience much more than they were expecting.

In 1954, a U.S. Marshal investigates the disappearance of a murderer who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane.

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Ten years after initially meeting, Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé Amidala, while Obi-Wan Kenobi investigates an assassination attempt on the senator and discovers a secret clone army crafted for the Jedi.

2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas

A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.

Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

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From controlling our weight, to helping us learn, to washing our brain, and fighting off disease like Alzheimer's, around the world researchers are penetrating the mysterious world of sleep and deciphering its secrets.

A frustrated Barry Egan calls a phone-sex line to curb his loneliness. Little does he know that he will land in huge trouble and will also jeopardise his relationship with Lena.

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An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks.

American drama television series from 1990–1991

New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano deals with personal and professional issues in his home and business life that affect his mental state, leading him to seek professional psychiatric counseling.

Two F.B.I. Agents, Fox Mulder the believer and Dana Scully the skeptic, investigate the strange and unexplained, while hidden forces work to impede their efforts.

American science fiction drama television series

Liz Lemon, head writer of the sketch comedy show "TGS with Tracy Jordan", must deal with an arrogant new boss and a crazy new star, all while trying to run a successful television show without losing her mind.

Satirical newscaster Stephen Colbert provides humorous commentary on the big issues going on in the United States and the rest of the world, with his larger-than-life ego and overly-patriotic spirit along with him every step of the w

In the not-too-distant future Joel Robinson is held captive by Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank, forced to watch B-Grade movies on the Satellite of Love with the help of his robot friends: Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot.

Film star Vince Chase navigates the vapid terrain of Los Angeles with a close circle of friends and his trusty agent.

The original surreal sketch comedy showcase for the Monty Python troupe.

A mockumentary on a group of typical office workers, where the workday consists of ego clashes, inappropriate behavior, and tedium.

The continuing misadventures of neurotic New York City stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his equally neurotic New York City friends.

Five friends with big egos and small brains are the proprietors of an Irish pub in Philadelphia.

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