Word: plimpton
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...where he’s doing it, there is at work a young writer of staggering promise.”So began the literary career of Thomas Pynchon, whose latest novel, “Inherent Vice,” we gather here today to celebrate. Since George A. Plimpton ’50 wrote the above praise some 46 years ago, Pynchon has indeed succeeded in turning staggering promise into staggering achievement. His third novel, 1973’s “Gravity’s Rainbow,” is one of those works—like Joyce?...
Early on, George, Being George doubles as a comic history of the lite. There's the Mayflower ancestry and the expulsion from Exeter--followed by a Harvard acceptance letter. ("It was a little easier to get into Harvard in those days," recalls Plimpton's brother Oakes.) The founding of The Paris Review offers proof that enthusiasm can trump disorganization, but Plimpton doesn't come into focus until his brief engagement to Bee Dabney, who dumps him for a friend at their engagement party. Dabney tells the tale here, but it was hardly a secret; Plimpton dined...
...long after, Plimpton created participatory journalism, foisting himself into ball games and orchestra pits (his absentminded triangle-playing infuriated Leonard Bernstein), where his earnest failures made for excellent pieces. What comes through in each episode is Plimpton's unquenchable curiosity, a love of human folly--especially his own--and a modern shrewdness; his fame as a professional amateur begot more fame, which gave him even greater access...
...everyone mentions his generosity, particularly bottomless when it came to The Paris Review, which he ran out of his home for decades. But what radiates is a person of massive charm, entirely at ease with his own unease. Muhammad Ali, sensing someone who got the joke about himself, called Plimpton "Kennedy," while the actual Kennedys welcomed him into their lives as a confidant. It was Plimpton, at Bobby's side, who wrestled the gun away from Sirhan Sirhan, a rare example of sadness that he did not mine for storytelling...
...anything, George, Being George is a bit too harsh. It may be true that he had a serious drinking problem in his declining years and was a rather horrible person to be married to, but those themes send the book out on a minor chord, particularly as friends recall Plimpton's lingering regret that he never took a proper crack at the great American novel. The rest of George, Being George proves he created something just as valuable: a great American character...