Happy Birthday, Edward Gorey

American author, illustrator, playwright, set and costume designer Edward Gorey was born February 15, 1925 and died a too-soon 75 years later of a heart attack on April 15, 2000.

His early life included one self-professed “negligible” semester at the Chicago School of Art, three years serving as a U.S. army clerk in the Utah desert, and four years at Harvard University majoring in French. He then spent seven years as a book cover illustrator in the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor in New York City.

For Doubleday, Gorey illustrated works as diverse as “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells, and “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by T. S. Eliot.

His first independent work, “The Unstrung Harp”, was published in 1953. He also published under pen names that were playful anagrams of his first and last names, such as Ogdred Weary, Dogear Wryde, Ms. Regera Dowdy, and dozens more.

It was the playful and macabre sense of humor displayed in the mostly black and white pen and ink illustrations of his own books which attracted avid devotees of his work and garnered Gorey a worldwide cult following. His designs for the 1977 Broadway production of “Dracula,” for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design, and his animated introduction to the PBS television series “Mystery!” in 1980 also greatly contributed to his fame.

One of his best-known works is “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” (1963), in which 26 unfortunate children meet their untimely, if somewhat mundane, deaths in whimsical rhyming couplets accompanied by the author’s somber and distinctive black and white illustrations.

Myrna Oliver, writing in the Los Angeles Times, suggests that Gorey’s texts were “hard to categorize as children’s books,” but Celia Anderson and Marilyn Apseloff, in “Nonsense Literature for Children: Aesop to Seuss”, insists that many children do appreciate Gorey’s verses and suggests that the dark themes depicted in them are indicative of their affiliation with a subgenre of nonsense literature.

Gorey’s adult admirers relish the childlike nature of his art that only serves to entice them into a beguiling world of oddities and morbid wit. According to an interview in The Boston Globe, Gorey classified his own work as literary nonsense, the genre made most famous by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.

Gorey himself once stated, “Oh, I know that the books are about something, not what they seem to be about … but I don’t know what that other thing is.”

Although he wrote of and illustrated the darker corners of life, Gorey rejected the idea that he was himself a melancholy or distant personality. “I see no disparity between my books and everyday life … I write about everyday life,” Gorey’s 2000 obituary in The Guardian quoted him as saying.

Gorey’s influences were wildly diverse, and were said to include his extensive knowledge and admiration of the works of numerous creative artists including authors Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope and Agatha Christie, Japanese film director/writer Yasujirō Ozu, choreographer George Balanchine, and 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.

Although he held a particular fondness for attending the New York City Ballet, he was also pop-culture junkie who enjoyed soap operas, commercials, and television comedies such as “Petticoat Junction” and “Cheers,” as well as horror and sci-fi series such as “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “The X-Files.”

Today, Gorey’s more than 200-year-old former home on the Yarmouth Port Common in Cape Cod, MA has become The Edward Gorey House, a museum dedicated to Gorey’s life and work and his devotion to animal welfare.

The sinister charm of  Gorey’s illustrations continues to attract fans of the bleak and wry persuasion today, and to paraphrase his own description of the uninvited guest in his book “The Doubtful Guest” (1957):

He came 85 years ago – and to this day
has shown no intention of going away.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Gorey!

Remembering Ray Bradbury

Author Ray Bradbury in 1997.  Photo: Steve Castillo/Associated Press

When news of the death yesterday of legendary science fiction author Ray Bradbury at 91 years of age hit the media you could almost feel the immediate and enormous reaction. Heartfelt condolences and tributes poured in, not just from his millions of sci-fi fans across the globe, but also from acclaimed fellow authors, eminent filmmakers and famous artists. Even the President of the United States weighed in with his own remarks about the man generally considered to be chiefly responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream.

Photo: Associated Press

“For many Americans, the news of Ray Bradbury’s death immediately brought to mind images from his work, imprinted in our minds, often from a young age,” President Obama said. “His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world. But Ray also understood that our imaginations could be used as a tool for better understanding, a vehicle for change, and an expression of our most cherished values. There is no doubt that Ray will continue to inspire many more generations with his writing, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.”

Reading all of these accolades for the celebrated writer reminded me that, like millions of others, just once I wished I could have had the chance to meet the visionary man who had influenced so much of my own childhood. So I decided to ask someone whom I knew had met Ray Bradbury once long ago about his own personal impressions. And author Stephen Gallup, who just happens to be my brother-in-law, was kind enough to send his thoughts to me.

+++++

Ray Bradbury – A Remembrance

By Stephen Gallup

The time was either the very early 1980s or possibly the late 70s, when my wife Judy and I went to the Library of Congress to hear Ray Bradbury give a talk. It might even have been the tenth anniversary of the Moon landing, because that’s the event Bradbury was thinking about.

Ray Bradbury, circa 1980. Photo Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

He recalled having been on TV with a social activist on the night Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the Moon. The activist had lamented all the money spent on the space program, arguing that it should have stayed on Earth where it would do some good. Bradbury found that complaint nonsensical. He objected that the space program was not some gigantic cement mixer churning dollar bills and pouring them out on the lunar surface. Of course, 100 percent of that money was still right here on the earth and had been providing many thousands of direct jobs and, indirectly, many more jobs to people and businesses everywhere. Not to mention the other benefits resulting from tackling and overcoming that massive challenge.

He also talked about one of his stories, in which a character claimed to have returned from a golden future time when, according to that character, all of mankind’s current problems had been resolved. Believing what he told them, everyone set about making his promised better world a reality—and they succeeded. At the end, the character admitted that he’d never been to the future at all. All the world had needed to achieve success was the assurance that that was their fate.

No doubt he tied these and other nuggets together in an enlightening way, but his image of the cement mixer is the main thing to have stayed with me through the years. Writers favor literary devices like that for the very reason that they fit into our minds the way a key fits a lock. Also, I liked the idea that affirmation of an idea could make it real.

Sometimes, I felt, Bradbury overcooked his language just a bit. But that flowery prose was the reason Judy called him her favorite author, and his “Dandelion Wine” her favorite novel.

Sometimes, the ideas in his writing struck me as being too simple. In my experience, confidence that an undertaking will end well is not necessarily enough. The wish may be father to the thought, but not necessarily to reality.

Still, I always liked Ray Bradbury’s works. And the man I met that night struck me as being thoroughly comfortable, well-balanced, and approachable. Up close, he reminded me of a teddy bear, and who doesn’t like teddy bears?

Just the other day, I happened to find my copy of the program for that night’s event. It contains a poem written by Bradbury (yes, he was a poet, too), and I got his autograph across that page. Somewhere around here, I also have a very kind letter he sent me, in response to a follow-up note I’d mailed to him. I’ll have to find it. It concludes with “Hugs to Judy.” He’d gathered that she was the real fan in our household.

The departure of a figure like that can only be seen as a loss for those of us who remain.

+++++

Stephen Gallup, author of What About the Boy?, blogs at www.fatherspledge.com.