|
De Amerikaanse schrijver Herman Wouk werd geboren op 27 mei 1915 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 mei 2009xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Uit: The Caine Mutiny
"Mr. Keefer," said the judge advocate, "at any time prior to 18 December were you informed that Maryk suspected Queeg of being mentally ill?"
"Yes."
"Describe how you learned this fact."
"At Ulithi, about two weeks before the typhoon, Maryk showed me a medical log he'd kept on Queeg's behavior. He asked me to come with him to the New Jersey to report the situation to Admiral Halsey."
"What was your reaction to the medical log?"
"I was dumfounded to learn that Maryk had kept it."
"Did you consent to go with him?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well, I was stunned. And I--that is, he was my superior officer and also my close friend. I didn't consider refusing.
"Did you believe that the log justified the relief of Queeg?"
"No. when we arrived aboard the New, Jersey, I told him as forcibly as I could that in my opinion the log would not justify the action, and that both of us would be liable to a charge of combining, to make a mutiny."
"What was his response?"
"He followed my advice. We returned to the Caine and no further reference was made by either of us to the log or to Queeg's mental condition."
"Did you inform the captain of Maryk's log?"
"I did not."
"Why not?"
"It would have been disloyal and contrary to the best interests of the ship to stir up my captain against my executive officer. Maryk had evidently abandoned his intention to pursue the matter. I considered the matter closed."
Herman Wouk (New York, 27 mei 1915)
Time Magazine Cover van 5 september 1955
De Amerikaanse schrijver John Cheever werd geboren op 27 mei 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 mei 2009
Uit: Bullet Park
How is your horrid country?
You can look all over the world but you wont find neighbors as kind and thoughtful as the people in Bullet Park.
He possesses for a moment the curious power of being able to frighten himself.
Oh, I wish it would never get darknever. I suppose you know all about that lady who was mistreated and strangled on Maple Street last month. She was my age and we had the same first name. We had the same horoscope and they never found the murderer
I heard her swear and a moment later I heard the noise of falling glass, and why is this sound so portentous, so like a doomcrack bell?
He turned on a light and saw how absorbed his son was in the lisping clown.
society had become so automative and nomadic that nomadic signals or means of communication had been established by the means of headlights, parking lights, signal lights and windshield wipers. Hang the child murderer. (Headlights.) Reduce the state income tax. (Parking lights.) Abolish the secret police. (Emergency signal.) The bishop had suggested that churchgoers turn on their windshield wipers to communicate their faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
The place had long ago gone to seed and had then been abandoned. The water traps were dry, the windmill had lost its sails and the greens were bare concrete but most of the obstacles were intact and on summer nights men and boys still played the course although there were no trespassing signs all over the place.
I was feeling good too but we have a problem here and we cant evade it just because the veal birds smell good.
The man explained that he was after draft evaders because he had spent a year and a half in a POW camp in Germany, eating rats and mice. He wanted the younger generation to learn what it was all about.
John Cheever (27 mei 1912 18 juni 1982)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Dashiell Samuel Hammett werd geboren in Saint Mary's County (Maryland), op 27 mei 1894. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 mei 2009
Uit: The Thin Man
I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes, the result was satisfactory. "Aren't you Nick Charles?" she asked.
I said: "Yes."
She held out her hand. "I'm Dorothy Wynant. You don't remember me, but you ought to remember my father, Clyde Wynant. You--"
"Sure," I said, "and I remember you now, but you were only a kid of eleven or twelve then, weren't you?"
"Yes, that was eight years ago. Listen: remember those stories you told me? Were they true?"
"Probably not. How is your father?"
She laughed. "I was going to ask you. Mamma divorced him, you know, and we never hear from him--except when he gets in the newspapers now and then with some of his carryings on. Don't you ever see him?"
My glass was empty. I asked her what she would have to drink, she said Scotch and soda. I ordered two of them and said: "No, I've been living in San Francisco."
She said slowly: "I'd like to see him. Mamma would raise hell if she found it out, but I'd like to see him."
"Well?"
"He's not where we used to live, on Riverside Drive, and he's not in the phone book or city directory."
Dashiell Hammett (27 mei 1894 10 januari 1961)
De Belgische Franstalige schrijver Georges Eekhoud werd in Antwerpen geboren op 27 mei 1854. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 mei 2007 en ook mijn blog van 27 mei 2009
Uit: L'autre vue ou Voyous de velours
Apres l'homme domestique ou l'ouvrier, il m'aurait plu de voir un nouveau Barye s'attaquer á l'homme fauve, préférer le truand au peinard, comme il célébra le tigre et le loup plutôt que le boeuf et le chien .
Et quel musicien transposerait en son art leurs insidieuses modulations, le timbre de leur voix gutturales, ces intonations imprévues, cette façon de redoubler, en s'appelant les uns les autres, la derniere voyelle de leur noms, par un coup de gosier semblable á un sanglot et qui me donne chaque
fois la chair de poule : Palu ...hul, Bugu...hutte ! Zwolu hue !..
Mais le verbe lui-même parviendrait-il á s'assimiler le fluide de ces enfants de la libre aventure ; le fumet de cette venaison humaine ? Par exemple, á certaines heures oú ils me paraissaient tellement saturés de vie et de jeunesse, que je m'évoque jusqu'au graillon de leur baiser et la saumure de leur salive !
L'autre jour, je m'imaginais être cet artiste absolu : poete, sculpteur, peintre et musicien, le tout á la fois . Que dis-je ? Un instant je crus même avoir usurpé la suprême béatitude réservée aux seuls dieux .
La force physique, l'adresse, la résistance musculaire fournissent le theme principal des causeries de mes inséparables et le prétexte á leurs jeux . Ce jour donc, ils m'entraînerent dans leur gymnase, pompeusement intitulé Arenes athlétiques . Représentez-vous, au fond d'un étroit boyau du quartier des Marolles, ironiquement appelé rue de la Philanthropie, un asez vaste hangar, ancien atelier de charron, ou magasin de chiffonniers, dans lequel on pénetre par un bouge ne différant des autres taudis de la ruelle que par les photographies des célébrités foraines accrochées aux parois .
Sur la lice jonchée de tan et de sciure de bois, dont l'odeur résineuse se mêle á des émanations humaines, s'éparpillent des halteres et des poids . A travers la buée opaque et rousse, á peine combattue par une fumeuse lampe á pétrole, je démêle les habitués de l'endroit, des apprentis pour la
plupart, venus en grand nombre á cause du samedi soir.
Georges Eekhoud (27 mei 1854 - 29 mei 1927)
|
