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Mina Kirstein Curtiss (1896–1985)

Författare till Other People's Letters: In Search of Proust

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Verk av Mina Kirstein Curtiss

Associerade verk

Letters of Marcel Proust (1949) — Editor and Translator, vissa utgåvor; Redaktör, vissa utgåvor132 exemplar

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Allmänna fakta

Födelsedag
1896-10-13
Avled
1985-10-31
Kön
female
Nationalitet
USA
Födelseort
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Dödsort
Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
Bostadsorter
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Rochester, New York, USA
Weston, Connecticut, USA
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
Utbildning
Smith College (1918)
Columbia University (MA|English, 1920)
Yrken
professor
editor
translator
biographer
memoirist
author
Relationer
Kirstein, Lincoln (brother)
Catt, Carrie Chapman (friend)
Organisationer
Mercury Theatre
Priser och utmärkelser
Legion d'Honneur (1960)
Kort biografi
Mina Curtiss, née Kirstein, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and spent her childhood in Rochester, New York. One of her brothers was Lincoln Kirstein, who became a writer, philanthropist and co-founder of New York City Ballet. She was educated at home by a governess and then attended Smith College, from which she graduated in 1918, and Columbia University, where she earned a master's degree in 1920. She returned to Smith to teach English on and off again from 1922 to 1934 and from 1940 to 1942, rising to the rank of associate professor. In 1933, she published a book about her marriage of one year and the early death of her husband, Henry Tomlinson Curtiss, called The Midst of Life. From 1935 to 1938, she worked on scripts with Orson Welles and John Houseman at the Mercury Theater of the Air in New York City. During World War II, she served on Houseman's staff at the Office of War Information. In 1944, she edited a collection of letters from enlisted men and noncommissioned officers called Letters Home, based on a program she had created for the radio station of the Des Moines Register. She was fluent in French, and translated works by Edgar Degas, Philip Halévy, and Marcel Proust into English. In 1978, she published Other People’s Letters: A Memoir, which chronicled her intense interest in Proust. She published a biography of Georges Bizet, and contributed book reviews, articles, and editorials to newspapers and journals for many years. She also was the editor of a number of other books, including Letters of Marcel Proust (1949); Olive, Cypress and Palm: An Anthology of Love and Death; and My Friend Degas. In 1960, she received the Legion of Honor from the French government. At the age of 81, she was named a visiting professor of English Language and Literature at Smith, teaching a course on writing biography.

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Recensioner

In Other People’s Letters: In Search of Proust Mina Curtiss drops names faster than an aging society beauty. While searching through the once stately homes of the once stately beau monde circles in search of Proust lost, Curtiss gathers letters and gossip by and about Proust and his circle of friends - mainly gossip about his circle of friends. If the reader seeks insight into Proust, s/he will find this book altogether unsatisfying. However, if the reader belongs to that select circle of people who eavesdrop on conversations in coffee shops and enjoy the occasional snide remark about this or that, then this book will will warm the cockles of the heart.

Curtiss is at her best, when she reveals her own private thoughts (usually the ungracious ones). For example, after attending a performance of Hamlet directed by Jean-Louis Barrault and translated by Andre Gide, Curtiss notes:

For the scene with his mother the whole huge stage was used as a bedroom with the widest bed and the most colossal headboard imaginable. The climax of the scene was not the killing of Polonius but Hamlet jumping up and down on the bed tearing an endless amount of bedding to pieces.

When not conducting research for her book, Curtiss spends an inordinate amount of time primly avoiding the seductive intentions of famous and/or fabulously wealthy men. Does she succumb? She appears to say “no,” but here and there intimations slip out suggesting otherwise. Of Prince Emmanuel Bibesco, she humorously (or is that coyly) remarks, “I must hand it to the Rumanians. Their idea of impotence in old age is the Anglo-Saxon notion of potency in the prime of life.”

The most informative part of the book does not concern the letters by or about Proust, but rather the interconnectedness of the principle publishers, writers, and performing artists time in which Curtiss conducted research on Proust. David Garnett, son of the famous translator Constance Garnett, when not making love to various members of the Bloomsbury circle (both male and female), edited and published many of the books of now dead notable authors. (He also made an attempt on Curtiss’s virtue - unsuccessful the reader is told.) Curtiss’s brother, Lincoln Kirstein was instrumental in bringing George Balanchine to the United States and together with Balanchine founded the famous New York City Ballet. Between them Curtiss and her brother knew most of the famous writers and artists of their generation.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of wealth. Curtiss, Kirstein, and their brother Edward were part of the Filene’s Department Store dynasty.
… (mer)
3 rösta
Flaggad
urania1 | May 7, 2010 |

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Statistik

Verk
5
Även av
1
Medlemmar
64
Popularitet
#264,968
Betyg
3.8
Recensioner
1
ISBN
6

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