Tomorrow Thursday 22nd is Grigori Rasputin‘s and August Strindberg‘s anniversary. Rasputin is then at 140, Strindberg at 160.
Edel‘s Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1995)
Rasputin is known today for the sensationalized accounts as playboy, mystical healer, debauched religious charlatan and political demiurge. Accounts of his life have often been based on dubious memoirs, hearsay, and legend, such as the story of his most honest organ.
Rasputin’s member, fact or fiction?
Strindberg is known for his misogyny (Strindberg’s misogyny), his interest in oneirism and the unconsciousness (A Dream Play and a chronology of the discovery of the unconscious in the 19th century) and as a founding father of literary realism.
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Mike Figgis‘s Miss Julie, the”And now kiss my shoe”-scene
Your best introduction to the life of Strindberg is his autobiographical novel Inferno. Written in French in 1897 at the height of Strindberg’s troubles with both censors and women, the book is concerned with Strindberg’s life both in and after he lived in Paris, and explores his various obsessions, including alchemy, occultism, and Swedenborgianism, and showing signs of paranoia and neuroticism.
Inferno has often been cited as proof of Strindberg’s own personal neuroses, such as a persecution complex, but evidence also suggests that Strindberg, although experiencing mild neurotic symptoms, both invented and exaggerated much of the material in the book for dramatic effect.
The Road to Damascus is pretty heavy on the Strindbergian woman hate. But some of his other stuff isn’t as bad. Ghost Sonata is pretty tame in that respect. I was at a lecture on Strindberg last week and apparently Freud developed some of his personality disorders based on Strindberg’s fictional autobiographies.
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apparently Freud developed some of his personality disorders based on Strindberg’s fictional autobiographies.
Interesting, Freud got many of his ideas from the arts.
Enjoyed the shoe kissing.
Thanks so much for the Rasputin posting. He is an old favorite/hero of mine. I was fascinated by him as a boy. I hadn’t given him a thought in ages!