From a Darkened Room: The Inman Diary (Inman Fund) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067445443X ISBN 13: 9780674454439

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1996

Synopsis

THE INMAN DIARIES a chamber opera by Thomas Oboe Lee based on the life and writings of Arthur Crew Inman and on the playVisitations by Lorenzo DeStefano INTERMEZZO NEW ENGLAND CHAMBER OPERA SERIES September 14-16, 2007 Tower Auditorium Theatre Massachusetts College of Art 621 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 617-899-4261 for further information produced with the cooperation of Harvard University Press Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life. The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster. This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published by Harvard as The Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Aaron was Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life. The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster. This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published as The Inman Diary (Harvard).

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067445443X
• ISBN 13: 9780674454439
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592
• Editor: Aaron