Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends

Ricardo Eliecer Fertali Reyes Basoalto, or better known under his pen name Pablo Neruda, was a Chilean poet, politician, and diplomat active during the 20thcentury. From the VERY young age of 13, Neruda’s writing career commenced with producing poetry, though his work spanned various styles of prose, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems, which tended to be his most popular and included the collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Throughout his life, Pablo occupied numerous diplomatic positions in his home country of Chile and served a term as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party; however, much of the mid 20thcentury proved to be tumultuous for Chile’s government, and Neruda found himself riding the waves between politician and exile. In the later years of his life, with the return of communism, Pablo was a close advisor to Chile’s socialist President Salvadore Allende, and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. Not long after, Neruda met a mysterious end, one which we will dive into later which begets the question…old age, or murder? Pablo is, to this day, considered the national poet of Chile, and his works have been popular and influential on a global scale for decades. But just who was Pablo Nerdua beneath his public persona of poet and politician? Let’s find out this week on Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends, as we discuss the fascinating life of Pablo Neruda.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, better known as HP Lovecraft, was an American writer of horror and…well…just…odd fiction, active during the early 20th century. Though he grew up in affluence, Lovecraft was struck early with family tragedy, thus compounded by financial struggles, and while he was never quite the type to make an effort with his studies, Lovecraft’s imagination was built at a very young age due to his beloved Grandfather’s storytelling. In the years before, during, and after WWI, Lovecraft became involved in pulp fiction, writing and publishing stories which focused on his interpretation of humanity’s place in the universe, and these works would of course be supplemented with fantastical, strange, and sometimes horrific elements. His best known work, “The Call of Cthulhu” (khlul-loo) is the one that put him on the map, and despite being virtually unknown during his time, Lovecraft in later years has amassed a cult following including both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. So just who was this New Englander with a taste for things macabre and strange? Well, he was a man who was the best of friends with Harry Houdini (an odd character as well, to say the least); he rarely went into public during daylight hours (sounds a tad vampiric to me, but probably the result of his consistent night terrors), and on top of disliking sex and being a relatively…uh…lazy individual, Lovecraft was a pretty prejudiced guy, even for the context of the time he was alive, bordering on white supremacist. Legacy is FINALLY back, and we are tackling one of the more controversial writers I have ever covered on the podcast this week with none other than HP motherfucking Lovecraft.

Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, aka Alexandre Dumas, was a prolific French writer active throughout the middle of the 19th century. His works have been translated into roughly over one hundred languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors of all time, alongside our other favorite Frenchman, Victor Hugo. While his novels were originally published as serials in newspapers, they have been adapted in the 20th century into nearly 200 different films demonstrating how insanely talented this guy was in a multitude of genres. You of course probably know him from his two greatest hits, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, however the depth of Dumas’ writing goes well beyond a handful of novels. In grand total, Alexandre produced over 100,000 pages of published writing throughout his life…and just to assure you, that is a shit ton of pages. He was additionally biracial, having a grandmother of Haitian descent, a typical Frenchman in that he was married with dozens of mistresses, and when he was buried, he was so beloved, Dumas was buried in The Pantheon. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who know Dumas well, described him as “the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth His tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself.” So just who was Mr. Alexandre Dumas, the man behind the writer? Let’s talk about it together this week on Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends.

Mary Flannery O’Connor was an American short story writer, essayist, and novelist, active throughout the first half of the 20th century. Born in Savannah, GA, Flannery’s original writing dreams were to become a journalist, yet that was squashed due to her shy personality and ridiculously heavy southern draw, and therefore, the arena of fiction was where she optimized her craft. O’Connor led a too short life, and her career is often overlooked due to the fact that its focus centers around the idea of Christian realism; Flannery was a devout Roman Catholic, and at the heart of each one of her short stories is a moment where the character is charged with the decision of choosing to accept or reject grace (aka GOD). In most circumstances, she would use relatively grotesque and violent scenes to show this moment, because in her own opinion, accepting grace is difficult and painful. “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” In grand total, Flannery wrote 2 novels, 31 short stories, and well over 100 book reviews. She never married nor had children, probably due to an early diagnosis of lupus, a disease she suffered with for 12 years before passing away at the very young age of 39, an illness her father had also succumbed to when she was a child. This week’s episode is going to be a tad shorter, mainly as a consequence of Flannery’s short yet striking career, and while normally on the podcast I might not cover an artist with so little meat on the bones, O’Connor has been one of the MOST requested writers in the last two and a half years for the podcast, so we are diving in anyway. We will focus on her life, a little on her writing to better understand the context of her perspectives, and of course, celebrate the incredible contributions Flannery made to the literary world.

HAPPY MONDAY Y’ALL! 

Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist, active throughout the mid 19th century, best known for his repeatedly revised work, Leaves of Grass, and considered to be a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare (of whom he is not a fan, btw). Whitman was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both perspectives into his writing, though his work was considered to be somewhat controversial (I am sorry, VERY controversial – it was reviewed by some as obscene) due to its overt sensuality. Throughout his life, Whitman worked as a journalist, a government clerk, and a teacher, spending the majority of his life in Brooklyn, New York. As a humanist, Walt volunteered much of his time during the Civil War, taking care of Confederate and Union soldiers alike who were wounded in the hospitals. What I find so amazing about Whitman is that originally in 1855, he published Leaves of Grass with his own money, with the sheer desire to reach out to the common person and share his art with the world, and oddly enough, even as his fame grew on a global scale, Whitman was hugely popular in England as a representation of American culture. Leaves of Grass remained Whitman’s masterpiece, and he continued to edit, add, and revise editions until the year of his death in 1892. To this day, it is still one of the most well-known, well-loved, and enduring works of poetry in the canon. As Ezra Pound once claimed Whitman to be “America’s poet … he is America”, Walt strove to prove himself to be just that. His external appearance was specially crafted to be a caricature of the era of his life, regardless of the controversy of his sexuality. So just who was Walt Whitman? Let’s find out together on this week’s episode of Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends, covering the life of legendary American writer, Walt Whitman.

Herbert George Wells was an English novelist, teacher, historian, and journalist active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a prolific writer in various genres and considered to be one of the main pioneers of the science fiction genre alongside Jules Verne, writing more than 100 books during his six decade career. Additionally, Wells wrote short stories and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography, as well as two books on recreational war games. Throughout his life, Wells was considered a prominent forward-thinking, and in moments prophetic, social critic, and he devoted much of his literary talent to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. Wells was a futurist and an outspoken socialist who empathized with pacifism, and he foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and quite possibly even the internet. Throughout his career, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times, a man Winston Churchill considered a close friend, and one of the most highly respected minds of his era. But just who was HG Wells when he wasn’t writing bestsellers? Well, he was a man who founded the Diabetic Association in the UK after suffering from diabetes himself; he is on the cover of SGT Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and he enjoyed his freedoms of all sorts, particularly when it came to his love life. Are you ready to learn all about the incredible life of HG Wells? Let’s get season 3, episode 1 of Legacy: the artists behind the legends, off and rolling!

WE ARE BACK FOR SEASON 3!

Aldous Leonard Huxley was a 20th century British writer and philosopher probably best known for his 1932 novel Brave New World, though in total Huxley would write over fifty nonfiction and fiction works throughout his life, as well as collections of essays, narratives, and poetry. By the end of his career, Huxley was considered one of the foremost intellectuals of his time, and as both a humanist and a pacifist, his ideas and writing had an immense impact on society, particularly when it came to mysticism and universalism. By his early twenties, Huxley established himself as a successful writer and satirist, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, and was additionally made the Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. He moved to LA in the later 1930s where he led an incredibly prosperous occupation as a screenwriter, and of course I will most definitely not be leaving out Huxley’s experimentation with drugs, his attachments to the Bloomsbury Group, and short-termed gig as George Orwell’s college professor. But who was Aldous Huxley beyond the world of literature? Well, he was a man with remarkably bad eyesight due to an accident he had as a teenager – honestly, it is believed he was almost completely blind for the majority of his life. Huxley had an extended association with the Vedanta Society in Southern California, which I promise to explain in great detail later on. And then there is the fact that he and Legacy favorite CS Lewis share the same day of death, though unlike CS Lewis, Huxley asked for and was granted LSD just hours before he passed. We are ending season 2 of Legacy with a bang this week, so strap in and get ready for episode 30 covering the life of the brilliant Aldous Huxley.

Karl Stig Erland Larsson, or as we all know him, Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish journalist, activist, and writer best known for his Millennium trilogy of crime novels following the life of Lisbeth Salander and Mikel Blomkvist. Sadly for Stieg, he passed away only just after completing the third installment of his Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicks the Hornet’s Nest. Posthumously, however, this series has become an international sensation, inspiring films on both sides of the Atlantic as well as a continuation of the series by David Lagercrantz, with the sixth novel to be released in September 2019. Still, what you might not know about Mr. Larsson is that he, in fact, led a very parallel life path to that of his signature character, Mr. Kalle Blomkvist. He spent his life devoted to a socialist cause, fighting as an independent researcher of right-wing extremism within the depths of Swedish government. Stieg was additionally a staunch feminist after witnessing a horrifying assault at a young age, and devoted much of his time and writing to giving women an equal voice. A little side note here – I do not believe I can even put into words how much I fucking love this man, this trilogy, and the message he is propelling out into the world. Not only does Larsson put together an intense, thrilling storyline with flawed yet loveable characters, but he also manages to confront huge issues within society and culture such as political corruption, sexism, sexual assault, mental illness, violence…the list goes on and on and on. So just who was the man behind The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Let’s find out together this week on episode 29 of Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends.

John Michael Crichton was an American author, screenwriter, producer, film director, certified medical doctor, and television creator active through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and his books alone have sold over 200 million copies worldwide in 38 languages with over a dozen adapted into films. And yes, you heard me right. Crichton was a licensed medical doctor out of Harvard Medical School, just to give you a frame of reference for how intelligent he was. His novel writing took off while he was still in Medical School with Crichton hoping the sales of a few books might help pay for his education. Instead, Crichton saw huge commercial success and decided writing was the passion he wished to pursue over medicine. From there, it was a steady stream of incredible and groundbreaking action-adventure stories that focused heavily on technology and science, a path that led him to unbelievable success with his novels, in film, and on television. But who was Michael Crichton beneath his talent for writing a damn good story? Well, for one thing, he was a VERY tall man, coming in at a whopping 6’9”. He was very good friends with Mr. Steven Spielberg, the man who took on Jurassic Park to turn it into a feature film almost immediately after its publication. And third, as you could guess for a man with a resume like this, he was a workaholic, which would explain the five wives, four of which divorced him for that very reason. I don’t know about you guys but I am a DIE HARD Jurassic Park fan, and I absolutely cannot wait to dive into the life behind the amazingly talented and driven, Mr. Michael Crichton, this week on the podcast. So let’s get rolling, shall we?