Do Any 'ordinary' Artists, Writers, Poets, Come To Mind?

[bainbrig]

Most British writers (mainly the men) seem to have been awful husbands or partners, deserting them, having them locked up in asylums, whatever. None (if any) led 'ordinary' lives - caring for their families, loving their wives or children, etc.

Did ANY of them lead ordinary lives, and just happen to write?

BB

[retrocop]

I think a load of ordinary authors some years ago got their literary skills from a bottle. Dylan Thomas springs to mind.

[bainbrig]

But Thomas (whose work I adore) treated Caitlin very badly - and scarcely 'provided' for her or their children in the normal way!

[Rosie29]

I don't really know about the private lives of present day authors. We only seem to find out when they're dead. But - living authors - Ian McEwen comes to mind he always seems a happy chap. Im sure there are other contented folk.

[woofgang]

Terry Pratchett.

[davebro]

Must be loads - J R R Tolkien?

[woofgang]

Robert Jordan

[woofgang]

Len Deighton

[Baldric]

Take your pick,

https://www.google.com/search?q=popular+authors&oq=popular+authors&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.15705j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[maggiebee]

Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin spring to mind. They seem to have very settled home lives.

[bainbrig]

Can those of you who named names (Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan, for example) give any details of their 'home' lives, indicating how normal a life they lived?

And not sure if you've got the point, Baldric.

[Rosie29]

I don't see how we can possibly know about other people's lives. Who knows what goes on behind the net curtains and the closed doors.

[bainbrig]

Well rosie, we DO know bits and pieces about the 'famous' writers to know they were wrong 'uns.

Dickens tried to get his first wife committed, so he could take up with the newer model.

TS Elliot DID get his poor sick wife confined to a lunatic asylum for many years, when it is possible that her 'madness' was brought on by PMT.

Virginia Woolf DID treat her servants abominably, claiming that she could only write if they were quiet and diligent (i.e. did the work while she ponced about).

Thomas Hardy DID live with his first wife Emma for many years, leading separate lives in the same house, only regretting it when she died.

What you DON'T seem to hear is that so-and-so did his work every day, collected the children from school, did his share of cooking and cleaning, and liberated his wife from the drudgery of day-to-day chores.

But maybe you do? Hence my question about the names people here are putting forward as being decent blokes. A bit more biographical information would help.

BB

[dannyk13]

In what context are you using the word'ordinary' ?

[MallyJ]

You really need to read a few biographies... the books I have read about Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, for example, suggest that they were very loving to their partners.....and that love was reciprocated. I can't some up whole biographies for you....you need to read them yourself if you are really interested. Was Shakespeare foul to his wife....not at all sure that he was. In order to respond to your statement one needs to have read an awful lot! Oh and I am aware of the birthplaces of the people I have mentioned.

[retrocop]

I have the impression rightly or wrongly that 'good' or prolific authors or artists etc were too self absorbed with their talents . When not actually painting or writing they were attending reviews, first nights book signing ceremonies etc etc.and had little time to be 'ordinary' family men/women. Obviously a few exceptions but they never will be lauded for that I would imagine.

[bainbrig]

Retrocop ("I have the impression rightly or wrongly that 'good' or prolific authors or artists etc were too self absorbed with their talents.")

That might be the point - not that I WANT it to be true, but maybe it's that to be a 'great' writer/poet/etc., you have to be a self-absorbed individual. Not a pleasant conclusion.

BB

[Peter Pedant]

Waugh ? Mitford? ( all)

Hardy having been a servant, used, when he got them, to kick his servants around - but that is normal for parvenus

Bronte sisters ( any)

Austen,

Trollope, thackeray, galsworthy werent noted for abnormality
Conan Doyle
Geoffrey Chaucer - shakespeare

[Peter Pedant]

George Bernard Shaw
- I mean he thought he was as good a s Shakepseare
but that doesnt make him abnormal does it?

I mean Boris thinks he can run a country ......

[bainbrig]

Peter: yes to some of it.

Bronte sisters seem to have been fairly ‘normal’, as was Austen.

But the blokes you list, another matter.

GB Shaw’s affairs were the stuff of newsprint - might have been normal for the 1890s, but still aberrant behaviour.

Shakespeare? Maybe, although if half his sonnets WERE addressed to a geezer, maybe not.

Do we know anything of Chaucer’s private life?

You write: “Trollope, thackeray, galsworthy werent noted for abnormality.” But that’s the point. Dickens’ behaviour, too, wasn’t ‘abnormal’ - he was behaving like many middle-class Englishmen in the mid-19th century. Wrong, but normal.

I want RIGHT, and normal!

BB

[bednobs]

cs lewis