Thursday 10 January 2019

A Year In Time.

At the moment I am reading a most insightful and delightful book about a year in time. The year being 1913, with little notes and anecdotes about artists and personalities of the moment... Proust, Puccini, Kafka, Rilke to name but a few. Florian Illies - 1913 A wonderful read indeed.

Naturally one paints a mental scene of the various anecdotes and even though our generation deems everything before the invention of the internet to be old, boring and has been, this book reminded me that life over a century ago was just as normal, mad or creative as it is today. In fact, when one considers that most literary classics, paintings and poetry were created by candle light with mere pen and paper a new found admiration sets in.

How would our great grandchildren describe a year in our life, a year we were creative? I can see the title now...2019. Will it have more to show for our lives than online creation and inventions? Will they talk about Instagram stars, YouTube millionaires or outrageous coiffed politicians? Artists, novelists and thespians would feature too but perhaps not with those groundbreaking works in toe that the 1913 generation had.

Reading about the everyday struggles of artists before they became the household name they are today was priceless...imagine the irony that back then they were worried about making ends meet when decades later their works would trade for millions, books would be reprinted endlessly and musicals performed constantly. Let us hope that 2019 will make for interesting reading in the future.

Some novels published in 1913:

  • Edith Wharton- The Custom of the Country
  • P.G. Wodehouse - The Little Nugget
  • D.H. Lawrence - Sons and Lovers
  • Joseph Conrad - Chance
  • Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Pigling Bland

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