Читать книгу Any Last Words? - Joseph Hayden - Страница 13

Writers

For those whose entire lives are about leaving their mark on the annals of history, one would think that last words are especially crucial. As Mark Twain famously pointed out, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

It should come as no surprise then that many of the writers listed in this chapter were indeed prepared for their one shot at nailing that all-important last line—though others, including Twain himself, seemingly found themselves with a very untimely case of writer’s block.

Voltaire (1694–1778)

To say that Voltaire was prolific would be like saying that the Eiffel Tower is somewhat well-known. The French playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, pamphleteer, historian, and academic wrote more than twenty thousand letters and more than two thousand books and pamphlets. Even more impressively, a lot of them are actually pretty good.

Voltaire was known for his lifelong battle against censorship, a battle that landed him in prison on a couple of occasions, including a stint in the Bastille and, worse yet, exile in England. There was no topic too high to be a target for his sharp tongue.

Many of his quotes have become commonplace sayings, such as, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” “Common sense is not so common,” and “Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

Another of Voltaire’s best-known quotes is “A witty saying proves nothing,” which is somewhat ironic considering his last words. When Voltaire was asked on his deathbed to renounce Satan, he answered:

“Now is the not the time for making new enemies.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

Thomas would top most lists of famous Welshmen. In his thirty-nine short years, Thomas managed to write some of the world’s most beloved and well-known poems and had an illustrious career in radio.

He was also one of history’s most famous drinkers. He saw it as more a point of honor than a hindrance, and, by all accounts, he could do it better than most. One of the poet’s most famous quotes sums up his feelings on the matter: “An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.”

Thomas himself did not go gentle into that good night; he did not go gentle at all. In fact, his last days involved staying at the infamous Hotel Chelsea and doing a fair bit of drinking. The night before he died, Thomas famously returned from the pub and announced:

“I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s the record!”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

One of America’s greatest poets, Dickinson lived most of her life in isolation. Her few relationships survived through correspondence, and correspond she could. Dickinson was one of the most beautiful writers who ever to put pen to paper. Her best-loved lines include “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else” and “Beauty is not caused. It is.”

The end of her life was fraught with sadness, as she lost what seemed like an endless stream of friends and family, one after another, until she finally lost her own years-long battle with Bright’s disease. Her last words were as haunting as one might expect:

“I must go in, for the fog is rising.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Wilde was, and perhaps still is, the undisputed master of witticisms. The beloved writer of plays, novels, essays, and heartbreaking children’s stories has left more memorable lines in his wake than anyone not born in Stratford-upon-Avon.

It is fitting that Wilde was as prolific on his deathbed as he was throughout his life. In his final days, Wilde left us with a bevy of lines that only he could deliver, and, while none of them were his absolute final ones, all of them are memorable. They include:

“I am dying beyond my means,” “It would really be more than the English could stand if another century began and I were still alive,” and “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)

Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright who influenced basically every playwright of the twentieth century. To give some sense of how beloved Ibsen was by some of his contemporaries, James Joyce reportedly became fluent in Norwegian just so he could read Ibsen in his original language.

Known as the father of realism, Ibsen has a dark humor that runs through much of his work, which was on full display in his final hour.

In his last days, Ibsen was bedridden after suffering from a stroke. Just before he died, an acquaintance who had come to visit asked about his health, and Ibsen’s nurse suggested that the writer was on the mend. Ibsen’s reply and last words were:

“On the contrary.”

Ian Fleming (1908–1964)

The author of all of the James Bond novels that are worth reading, Fleming’s own life reflected that of 007 more than one might expect. Fleming was an intelligence officer during World War II and was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye. He excelled at athletics, attended a tiny private school run by a former British spy, and had several broken engagements and affairs with high-profile women.

Though he was not a strong English student as a young man, Fleming eventually went on to a fairly successful career as a journalist and a wildly successful career as a novelist, writing not only the Bond novels, but also the children’s favorite Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Sadly, Fleming’s heavy smoking and hard drinking led to a series of ailments which cut his life short. His last words were to paramedics who were transporting him to the hospital following a heart attack. He was politely British to the end:

“I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)

Most will know Alcott from her Little Women, a loose recollection of her own childhood that has withstood the test of time and become a children’s favorite. Fewer know that the American-born novelist and poet was a revolutionary.

Alcott grew up learning from and speaking with intellectuals such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. She and her family helped escaped slaves navigating the Underground Railroad, even housing Frederick Douglass. As well as an active abolitionist, Louisa May was a staunch feminist, remaining independent throughout her life.

Alcott’s health deteriorated in her later years, despite her being an avid runner which went against the gender norms of the time. In the end, it took some combination of typhoid fever—which she contracted during her service in the American Civil War—mercury poisoning from the treatment, and perhaps lupus to take her down, and, even then, she thought she could beat it. Her last words:

“Is it not meningitis?”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997)

The elder statesman of the Beat Generation, Burroughs was a writer, traveler, and famous user of narcotics. Burroughs divides critics like few others. His works range from linear stories involving heavy drug use to psychedelic narratives that some found impenetrable. While some saw Burroughs as an important counterculture voice, others fought to ban his works for obscenity. The author was as equally as contentious as his work. His well-documented drug and alcohol use sadly contributed to a William Tell stunt gone wrong which resulted in the accidental shooting of his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Burroughs’s life is that he lived to the ripe old age of eighty-four. Burroughs had a hand in many of the counterculture movements of the twentieth century, including the Beat Generation in the 1950s and Andy Warhol’s Factory in the 1960s and 1970s.

Despite years of heavy drug use (he was still an active heroin user in his eighties), in the end Burroughs died near his small house in Kansas, of a heart attack on the way to the store. His last words:

“Back in no time.”

Herman Melville (1819–1891)

Melville is best known for writing Moby Dick, a novel that often finishes the sentences “One day I mean to read…” and “I should really finish…” While the novel is a favorite bookshelf filler for today’s well-meaning fans of the classics, it was not well received until long after Melville’s death.

It took even longer for people to appreciate Billy Budd, a novel that was left unfinished after Melville’s death but was finally published more than thirty years later, in 1924. Melville’s last words suggest that at least he thought it might be something of a success, as he died referencing one of the novel’s characters:

“God Bless Captain Vere!”

Jane Austen (1775–1817)

Jane Austen only published four novels in her lifetime and two more posthumously. This means that her film-adaptation-to-novel ratio is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand to one.

Austen’s name never appeared on the covers of her novels during her lifetime. Sense and Sensibility was credited as being written “By A Lady,” and all subsequent novels were billed as being by the author of Sense and Sensibility.

Austen died at age forty-one of a combination of Addison’s disease and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. At first, she apologized for her illness, making light of it and seeing it as weakness in herself, but, by the end of a long hard fight, she was sadly ready to go:

“I want nothing but death.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)

Conan Doyle is almost as interesting as the characters he created. The writer was a doctor, a botanist, a sailor, an adventurer, an amateur architect, and a politician. He even studied the occult and mysticism. And, amidst all this, he still found time to create the many adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle was also something of a sportsman. He boxed, played goalkeeper in soccer, and was on an amateur cricket team that also featured A. A. Milne and J. M. Barrie.

After his first wife died of tuberculosis, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie, who became the love of his life. When he died in his garden of a heart attack at age seventy-one, his last words were to her:

“You are wonderful.”

Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953)

The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of The Ice Man Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night, among other works, Eugene O’Neill was known as one of the great realist American writers.