Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Orton diaries : including the correspondence of Edna Welthorpe and others (original 1986; edition 1986)by Joe Orton
Work InformationThe Orton Diaries by Joe Orton (1986)
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Gripping. ( ) Wasn't a big fan of this on the whole. It veered between quite dull sections on the night by night performance of his plays at the theatre and joyless sex scenes - in particular with the kids in Morocco. On the other hand I liked the gossipy, conversational bits where people like Kenneth Williams popped up, and it was quite morbidly fascinating reading it, all the time knowing how it ends, and looking out for the warning signs in their relationship. A very entertaining read unless you are homophobic. In his brief career Orton wrote several West End theatre successes until murdered by his gay lover in 1967. His diaries tell it very much as it is, with sex on his mind almost continuously, and almost as frequently being acted out, sometimes with graphic detail. One wonders what he might have achieved had his lifestyle left more time and energy for writing - and not been cut off so early (age 34) by that lifestyle. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesDistinctions
”To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich and happy is surely going against nature.” When Joe Orton (1933#150;1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for his darkly hilarious Entertaining Mr. Sloane and the farce hit Loot, and was completing What the Butler Saw; but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed in Orton’s skull with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton Diaries, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles; his sexual escapades#151;at his mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the breakdown of his sixteen-year "marriage" to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, The Orton Diaries is his crowning achievement. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)828.91403Literature English & Old English literatures English miscellaneous writings English miscellaneous writings 1900- English miscellaneous writings 1900-1999 English miscellaneous writings 1945-1999 Diaries, journals, notebooks, reminiscencesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |