From a Darkened Room: The Inman Diary - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067445443X ISBN 13: 9780674454439

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life.

The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman’s explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster.

This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published by Harvard as The Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Aaron was Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life. The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster. This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published as The Inman Diary (Harvard).

Reviews

Wealthy invalid, rabid racist, inveterate lecher, and compulsive voyeur, Inman was devoted to his diary above all else. By the time of his suicide in 1963, he had written more than 17 million words in 155 volumes. The two-volume edition issued by Harvard University Press in 1985 was generally praised for its value as social history. This abridgment, about one-third the size of the earlier edition, sacrifices political and historical material to focus on Inman's personal life: his relations with his wife, servants, and "talkers"?those women who bared their souls (and often their bodies) to him for a few dollars an hour. This condensed version is no doubt meant to attract general readers. The problem, however, is that many of those readers will find Inman's bigotry and arrogance repellent.?William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067445443X
• ISBN 13: 9780674454439
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592
• Editor: Aaron