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Algren
Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name. Algren articulated the world of "drunks, pimps, prostitutes, freaks, drug addicts, prize fighters, corrupt politicians, and hoodlums". Art Shay singled out a poem Algren wrote from the perspective of a "halfy," street slang for a legless man on wheels. Shay said that Algren considered this poem to be a key to everything he had ever written. The protagonist talks about "how forty wheels rolled over his legs and how he was ready to strap up and give death a wrestle." According to Harold Augenbraum, "in the late 1940s and early 1950s he was one of the best known literary writers in America." The lover of French writer Simone de Beauvoir, he is featured in her novel ''The Mandarins'', set in Paris and Chicago. He was called "a sort of bard of the down-and-outer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Man With The Golden Arm (novel)
''The Man with the Golden Arm'' is a novel by Nelson Algren, published by Doubleday (publisher), Doubleday in November 1949. One of the seminal novels of post-World War II American letters, ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' is widely considered Algren's greatest and most enduring work. It won the National Book Award in 1950. The novel details the trials and hardships of illicit card dealer "Frankie Machine", along with an assortment of colorful characters, on Chicago's Near Northwest Side. A veteran of World War II, Frankie struggles to stabilize his personal life while trying to make ends meet and fight a growing addiction to morphine. Much of the story takes place during the immediate postwar period along Division Street (Chicago), Division Street and Milwaukee Avenue (Chicago), Milwaukee Avenue in the old Polish Downtown (Chicago), Polish Downtown. Plot summary The events of the novel take place between 1946 and 1948, primarily on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. The title ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simone De Beauvoir
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even though she was not considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was known for her 1949 treatise ''The Second Sex'', a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism; and for her novels, including ''She Came to Stay'' (1943) and '' The Mandarins'' (1954). Her most enduring contribution to literature is her memoirs, notably the first volume, "Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée" (1958), which has a warmth and descriptive power. She won the 1954 Prix Goncourt, the 1975 Jerusalem Prize, and the 1978 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Man With The Golden Arm
''The Man with the Golden Arm'' is a 1955 American drama film with elements of film noir directed by Otto Preminger, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren. Starring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold Stang and Darren McGavin, It recounts the story of a drug addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. Although the addictive drug is never identified in the film, according to the American Film Institute "most contemporary and modern sources assume that it is heroin", in contrast to Algren's book which named the drug as morphine. The film's initial release was controversial for its treatment of the then-taboo subject of drug addiction. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Sinatra for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Elmer Bernstein for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Sinatra was also no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Shay
Art Shay (March 31, 1922 – April 28, 2018) was an American photographer and writer. Biography Born in 1922, Shay grew up in the Bronx and then served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, during which he flew 52 bomber missions. Shay joined the staff of ''Life'' magazine as a writer, and quickly became a Chicago-based freelance photographer for ''Life'', ''Time'', ''Sports Illustrated'', and other national publications. He photographed seven US Presidents and many major figures of the 20th century. Shay also wrote weekly columns for various newspapers, several plays, children's books, sports instruction books and several photo essay books. Shay's photography is sold at galleries and is in permanent collections of major museums including the National Portrait Gallery and The Art Institute of Chicago. He enjoyed working out with his friend purple aki Shay's long friendship with the writer Nelson Algren led to the publication of Shay's ''Nelson Algren's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Walk On The Wild Side
''A Walk on the Wild Side'' is a 1956 novel by Nelson Algren, also adapted into the 1962 film of the same name. Set in Depression era, it is "the tragi-comedy of Dove Linkhorn", a naive Texan drifting from his hometown to New Orleans. Algren noted, "The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind." It is most often quoted for Algren's "three rules of life": "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own." Plot summary Chapter 1 Fitz Linkhorn barely managed to make a living pumping out cesspools, but his consuming vocation was "Born Again" preaching from the courthouse steps in 1930 Arroyo, Texas; i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Neon Wilderness
''The Neon Wilderness'' (1947) is the first short-story collection by American writer Nelson Algren. Two of its stories had received an O. Henry Award. Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters the same year. Overview The book collects 24 stories: 8 previously published (from 1933 to 1947) and 16 new. Most of them are set in then-contemporary Chicago (1930s and 1940s), in the so-called "Polish-American ghetto". They revolve around the lower classes: workers and unemployed, drunkards and gamblers, prostitutes and hustlers, small-businessmen and policemen. Unlike Dickens or Zola, their general tone is tragi-comedy or sympathetic satire. Two stories had received an O. Henry Award (and been reprinted in the related annual volume): Algren's second-published story "The Brothers' House" (1935 award) and "A Bottle of Milk for Mother (Biceps)" (1941 award). Two had been selected for ''The Best American Short Stories'': "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" (as "Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mandarins
''The Mandarins'' (french: Les Mandarins) is a 1954 roman à clef by Simone de Beauvoir, for which she won the Prix Goncourt, awarded to the best and most imaginative prose work of the year, in 1954. ''The Mandarins'' was first published in English in 1956 (in a translation by Leonard M. Friedman). The book follows the personal lives of a close-knit group of French intellectuals from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. The title refers to the scholar-bureaucrats of imperial China. The characters at times see themselves as ineffectual "mandarins" as they attempt to discern what role, if any, intellectuals will have in influencing the political landscape of the world after World War II. As in Beauvoir's other works, themes of feminism, existentialism, and personal morality are explored as the characters navigate not only the intellectual and political landscape but also their shifting relationships with each other. The Irish novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch (in the ''Sun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Book Award For Fiction
The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but they are awards "by writers to writers." The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field." General fiction was one of four categories when the awards were re-established in 1950. For several years beginning 1980, prior to the Foundation, there were multiple fiction categories: hardcover, paperback, first novel or first work of fiction; from 1981 to 1983 hardcover and paperback children's fiction; and only in 1980 five awards to mystery fiction, science fiction, and western fiction. When the Foundation celebrated the 60th postwar awards in 2009, all but three of the 77 previous winners in fiction categories were in print. The 77 included all eight 1980 winners but excluded the 1981 to 1983 childr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walk On The Wild Side (film)
''Walk on the Wild Side'' is a 1962 American drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk, and starring Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter and Barbara Stanwyck. It was adapted from the 1956 novel ''A Walk on the Wild Side'' by American author Nelson Algren. The film was scripted by John Fante. While it passed its censors, it was an adult film noir with explicit overtones and subject matter. It walks its audience through the lives and relationships between adults (mostly women) engaged in the "business" of commercial prostitution at a stylish New Orleans brothel. The "boss" is Madam Jo (Stanwyck), who combines toughness with a motherly tenderness toward her "girls." As Life magazine explained, "Jane Fonda portrays a grubby, footloose prostitute....just arrived in New Orleans to live in a fancy house where much of the action takes place....to get approval by the Code Authority and Legion of Decency, the movie changes some of the most evil characters into good ones, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Fante
John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel ''Ask the Dust'' (1939) about the life of Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel, and is one in a series of four, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet". ''Ask the Dust'' was adapted into a 2006 film starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Fante's published works while he lived included five novels, one novella, and a short story collection. Additional works, including two novels, two novellas, and two short story collections, were published posthumously. His screenwriting credits include, most notably, '' Full of Life'' (1956, based on his 1952 novel by that name), '' Jeanne Eagels'' (1957), and the 1962 films '' Walk on the Wild Side'' and ''The Reluctant Saint''. Early life Fante was born in D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades. Accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death (1346–53) led to mass slaughter of German Jews and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity." The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany. Entire communities, like those of Trier, Worms, Mainz and Cologne, were slaughtered. The Hussite Wars became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. It encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah, as it is commonly understood by Jews, is part of the larger text known as the ''Tanakh''. The ''Tanakh'' is also known to secular scholars of religion as the Hebrew Bible, and to Christians as the " Old Testament". The Torah's supplemental oral tradition is represented by later texts s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
