Memoirs

The Memoirs by Tennessee Williams were clearly written for publication by an author self-confident enough to write whatever he liked in whatever way he liked, seemingly with disdain for the reader or even the publisher. However, this makes the book very personal. The book is chronological, but not evenly spread out. Likewise, the book doesn't aim at accuracy or completeness. The Memoirs could be read as a supplement to a biography but aren't detailed enough to be read instead of a biography. Reading these Memoirs one gets the feeling the author enjoyed looking back on his life en enjoyed writing about it so openly and explicitely, which was possible in the early 1970s when the book was published. Here is a writer who enjoys telling his show more story, and so many of his romances and sexual escapades find their ways into the book, including his long-term relationship with Frank Merlo. On the other hand, the book is somewhat disappointing for readers who are expecting to read more about Williams career as a writer, his ideas and inspiration, literary friendships, etc., although it is worth mentioning that there is a lot about his friendship with Carson McCullers and readers interested in that author might need to refer to these pages. It is therefore questionable why Penguin Books published thje book as a Modern Classic, probably more as a tribute to the upcoming openly gay writing of the 1970s that the literary merits of the work. show less

Saw the play last night at 45 Downstairs. Hesitating between 3 and 4 stars. I'd like to see another production of it some time, which is not to say this was a bad one, but that I'd like a second opinion. In Melbourne it was put on as part of the Midsummer Festival: unfortunately it is therefore being marketed as a play about homosexuality, which it is not - or rather no more so than it is about mental illness, poverty, relations between men and women, the nature of art and the ways in which the people of New Orleans relate to their surroundings....

Not least, it is about whether the cook should spit in the gumbo as it is being prepared.

Saw the play last night at 45 Downstairs. Hesitating between 3 and 4 stars. I'd like to see another production of it some time, which is not to say this was a bad one, but that I'd like a second opinion. In Melbourne it was put on as part of the Midsummer Festival: unfortunately it is therefore being marketed as a play about homosexuality, which it is not - or rather no more so than it is about mental illness, poverty, relations between men and women, the nature of art and the ways in which the people of New Orleans relate to their surroundings....

Not least, it is about whether the cook should spit in the gumbo as it is being prepared.

I absolutely loved this memoir. The great thing about a memoir, you can talk about anything you want and anything you feel was important in your life. To Tennessee his personal life was what shaped him as a writer. I would cry when he talked about the mental illness his sister and mother had, and then I would laugh when he talked about all of the sexual positions he tried last night with the young prostitute. I definately have a deeper appreciation and understanding of his writing.

Since Williams' Memoirs are the first and only memoirs I have ever read, I don't know how they hold up as memoirs. However, I do know that I fully enjoyed reading them! The sordid tales of his life were beyond interesting to me. I especially enjoyed the one in which a stranger came up to him on the street and shouted, "Hey! You gave me crabs last night!" How wild!

While I did enjoy the stories and the book as a whole, it was a little hard to connect everything together sometimes. Often times, I would begin to see a timeline emerge and all of a sudden he would throw in a non sequitor from left field.

Some detergent flowed through these pages, but it's still fun to see his perspective on what happened. Williams is an icon. He went where no [other] 'man' had gone before.

A tell-all book that doesn't.

Not even much insight in how and why he wrote his plays.

Pass on it.