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claudiamccarron's review against another edition
5.0
I've been very anxious about death recently, and, as I usually do with things that obsess me, I decided to read a book about it. I don't agree with all of Roiphe's interpretations here, but what does resonate is the beautiful writing and the palpable fear all of her subjects wrestle with. In the end, she suggests that that fear isn't something to overcome but something to live through. It didn't exactly cure my anxiety, but I'm starting to see that that may be the point.
specificwonderland's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I had this on my TBR for years(?) and finally read it. When I looked at the table is contents, there was only one author I was interested in, Updike. So that's the section I read and it was very poignant and dad and good and interesting and revealing.
annevoi's review against another edition
4.0
In this elegant exploration of death and dying—and, inevitably, about lives fully lived—Katie Roiphe focuses on five writers/artists, about whom there is copious documentation about the end of their lives: Susan Sontag, who lived in denial of death and continued to work fiercely until the end; Sigmund Freud, who declared himself “sensibly resigned” to death; John Updike, who, through his writing (and affairs), sought to cheat death; the wildly self-destructive Dylan Thomas; Maurice Sendak, who wrote and drew his hyper-imaginative children’s books to keep the darkness from pressing in and annihilating him. And, in an epilogue (fully alive, he and Roiphe had a conversation on the subject), James Salter, who didn’t really find death to be a problem at all: just don’t think about it, he counseled.
Roiphe suffered a near-death experience when she was a girl, and has always had a fearful fascination with the end of life as a result. To investigate that feeling, she delved into the writings—journals, letters, essays, fiction, poetry—of these people to find out what they thought, believed, hoped, and feared about death. She talked with their children, their caretakers, their friends, those who clustered around as life seeped away. She explored their biographies for clues. "I've picked people who are madly articulate, who have abundant and extraordinary imaginations or intellectual fierceness, who can put the confrontation with mortality into words—and in one case images—in a way that most of us can't or won't."
In her conclusion Roiphe writes,
"I am coming to see that the real thing I am afraid of is not death itself but the fear of death. This fear is not abstract to me. The knowing you are about to die. The panic of its approach. That is what seems unbearable to me. That’s what I’ve been trying to write my way through.
"But here’s what I learned form the deaths in this book: You work. You don’t work. You resist. You don’t resist. You exert the consummate control. You surrender. You deny. You accept. You pray. You don’t pray. you read. You work. You take as many painkillers as you can. you refuse painkillers. You rage against death. You run headlong toward it.
"In the end the deaths are the same. They all die. The world releases them."
Roiphe suffered a near-death experience when she was a girl, and has always had a fearful fascination with the end of life as a result. To investigate that feeling, she delved into the writings—journals, letters, essays, fiction, poetry—of these people to find out what they thought, believed, hoped, and feared about death. She talked with their children, their caretakers, their friends, those who clustered around as life seeped away. She explored their biographies for clues. "I've picked people who are madly articulate, who have abundant and extraordinary imaginations or intellectual fierceness, who can put the confrontation with mortality into words—and in one case images—in a way that most of us can't or won't."
In her conclusion Roiphe writes,
"I am coming to see that the real thing I am afraid of is not death itself but the fear of death. This fear is not abstract to me. The knowing you are about to die. The panic of its approach. That is what seems unbearable to me. That’s what I’ve been trying to write my way through.
"But here’s what I learned form the deaths in this book: You work. You don’t work. You resist. You don’t resist. You exert the consummate control. You surrender. You deny. You accept. You pray. You don’t pray. you read. You work. You take as many painkillers as you can. you refuse painkillers. You rage against death. You run headlong toward it.
"In the end the deaths are the same. They all die. The world releases them."
annebennett1957's review against another edition
5.0
It surprised me how much I enjoyed reading The Violet Hour. I'm not familiar with the works of any of these writers outside of Sendak, and what person who grew up in the last fifty years isn't familiar with his works? So I wasn't attracted to this book because I wanted to learn more about these writers. Nor am I particularly fascinated by the topic of death as my faith gives me a strong assurance that there is life after death. So why did I feel compelled to read it in the first place? When I came home from the library with the hugely hilarious book haul of twelve books last week I sat down and read twenty pages of so of about half of them, trying to determine which of them I'd actually have time to read. By page ten I knew this is a book I'd have to finish. Why? The writing was so strong and captivating.
Katie Roiphe filled her book with intimate and surprising revelations about each of the highlighted writers lives. She obviously did a LOT of homework so she could fill each section with examples from the writers own works but also interviews with associates and loved one making each writer come alive in my imagination. Since many of these writers died recently, there are even TV/radio interviews with the authors themselves.
Roiphe doesn't say it directly but one is led to believe by reading the prologue that she herself is fascinated by death since she was very near death several times in her childhood, as we see in the opening lines about the near-fatal taxi ride. Susan Sontag, considered a consummate intellectual by many, couldn't imagine dying or life going on without her. She did seem to be able to fight off death after battling cancer and winning two times before succumbing to it after a third cancer appeared. Freud refused to take any painkillers stronger than aspirin even though his throat cancer and open sores of the mouth clearly caused great pain. He didn't want his sense dulled at the end and we wanted to work as long as he could. John Updike worked on poems from his hospital bed after he received a shocking diagnosis of lung cancer. Even when he was too tired to go one he still forced himself to finish his last book, a collection of poems written about his end. Dylan Thomas seemed to know that he was going to die. Or did he kill himself with drink? At any rate so many of his poems point to clear obsession with death and/or warding it off. "Do not go gentle into that good night..." Sendak, who had a very sad childhood and experienced a heart attack at age 39 incorporated many of his fears or thoughts about death into his children's book. One theme which I completely missed when I read his books was adults attempting to bake children into cakes or pies. When he was a child he was reminded by his parents that he had no right to be happy since his relative had been baked in the oven during the Holocaust. Can you imagine a childhood filled with that kind of despair? No wonder he was focused on death for most of his long life.
Roiphe's interview with James Salter was described as a epilogue because he was alive at the time and she wanted to talk to him about death because he seemed to so clearheaded about it in his books. He, unlike the other writers, said he didn't think much about it even though he was in his eighties when she interviewed him. During the interview Salter asked Roiphe what she thought about her project to write about these authors and their deaths and she answered that their deaths kind of reassured her. Salter asked Roiphe to elaborate and she relayed several stories told to her about the other five. Salter listened intently and then said, "We make our own comfort." Roiphe realized that that was it. Death stories can bring us comfort.
I'll close with a quote from page 285:
"The beauty I found in these deaths was what surprised me. The life rushing in, the vastness of the work, the great, sometimes deranged seeming courage, the mad love in the last moments...Part of the creative work these people did, their art, was their lives themselves. There is something glorious in the conflagration of everything at the end. The beauty was what ambushed me."
I felt a little ambushed by this book, too, but in a good way.
https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-and-quotes-violet-hour.html
Katie Roiphe filled her book with intimate and surprising revelations about each of the highlighted writers lives. She obviously did a LOT of homework so she could fill each section with examples from the writers own works but also interviews with associates and loved one making each writer come alive in my imagination. Since many of these writers died recently, there are even TV/radio interviews with the authors themselves.
Roiphe doesn't say it directly but one is led to believe by reading the prologue that she herself is fascinated by death since she was very near death several times in her childhood, as we see in the opening lines about the near-fatal taxi ride. Susan Sontag, considered a consummate intellectual by many, couldn't imagine dying or life going on without her. She did seem to be able to fight off death after battling cancer and winning two times before succumbing to it after a third cancer appeared. Freud refused to take any painkillers stronger than aspirin even though his throat cancer and open sores of the mouth clearly caused great pain. He didn't want his sense dulled at the end and we wanted to work as long as he could. John Updike worked on poems from his hospital bed after he received a shocking diagnosis of lung cancer. Even when he was too tired to go one he still forced himself to finish his last book, a collection of poems written about his end. Dylan Thomas seemed to know that he was going to die. Or did he kill himself with drink? At any rate so many of his poems point to clear obsession with death and/or warding it off. "Do not go gentle into that good night..." Sendak, who had a very sad childhood and experienced a heart attack at age 39 incorporated many of his fears or thoughts about death into his children's book. One theme which I completely missed when I read his books was adults attempting to bake children into cakes or pies. When he was a child he was reminded by his parents that he had no right to be happy since his relative had been baked in the oven during the Holocaust. Can you imagine a childhood filled with that kind of despair? No wonder he was focused on death for most of his long life.
Roiphe's interview with James Salter was described as a epilogue because he was alive at the time and she wanted to talk to him about death because he seemed to so clearheaded about it in his books. He, unlike the other writers, said he didn't think much about it even though he was in his eighties when she interviewed him. During the interview Salter asked Roiphe what she thought about her project to write about these authors and their deaths and she answered that their deaths kind of reassured her. Salter asked Roiphe to elaborate and she relayed several stories told to her about the other five. Salter listened intently and then said, "We make our own comfort." Roiphe realized that that was it. Death stories can bring us comfort.
I'll close with a quote from page 285:
"The beauty I found in these deaths was what surprised me. The life rushing in, the vastness of the work, the great, sometimes deranged seeming courage, the mad love in the last moments...Part of the creative work these people did, their art, was their lives themselves. There is something glorious in the conflagration of everything at the end. The beauty was what ambushed me."
I felt a little ambushed by this book, too, but in a good way.
https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-and-quotes-violet-hour.html
jm_donellan's review against another edition
4.0
I don't read many writer's biographies, usually preferring to let their created worlds outshine their actual realities, but I really enjoyed this account of various writers' endings (mortography?) Roiphe's prose is philosophical, fluid and direct. Her subjects are fascinating in their own right, but she folds their stories into accounts of their own fiction like origami, creating something new and beautiful.
By far my favourite was her examination of Maurice Sendak, a man obsessed with death and darkness and indulgence and art (so should we all be). The sentence "One day a crazy Australian woman came and sat naked on the lawn" was thoroughly unforgettable, but I loved the way Sendak is so puzzled by the way adults fail to understand children's fascination with death and destruction, the way we form a sort of protective amnesia around their perfectly normal fascination with one of the few things that all humans share.
Freud's attempt to understand his own end rationally, analytically was also fascinating, and I'd had no idea that Dylan Thomas had died at 39. A tragically early fate for a man known for poems like 'Death Shall Have No Dominion' and 'Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night.'
This was a thoughtful, beautiful study of the wonder and horror that we all face at the end of our lives and also served as a very telling account of some of the 20th century's greatest voices.
By far my favourite was her examination of Maurice Sendak, a man obsessed with death and darkness and indulgence and art (so should we all be). The sentence "One day a crazy Australian woman came and sat naked on the lawn" was thoroughly unforgettable, but I loved the way Sendak is so puzzled by the way adults fail to understand children's fascination with death and destruction, the way we form a sort of protective amnesia around their perfectly normal fascination with one of the few things that all humans share.
Freud's attempt to understand his own end rationally, analytically was also fascinating, and I'd had no idea that Dylan Thomas had died at 39. A tragically early fate for a man known for poems like 'Death Shall Have No Dominion' and 'Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night.'
This was a thoughtful, beautiful study of the wonder and horror that we all face at the end of our lives and also served as a very telling account of some of the 20th century's greatest voices.
rebjacks1963's review against another edition
3.0
Chapters on Updike, Sontag, Sendak, and Salter are the best. It is in these chapters that Roiphe seems to be working with original and substantive material. Chapters on Freud and Thomas seem forced. When you read the notes, you see why. The Freud chapter is based on Roiphe's dissertation. And the Thomas chapter really just recycles material from other sources. I love the idea of the book and in places the book sings. Most of the time, though, I found myself thinking that there really wasn't enough material for a book, so Roiphe had to invent a way to make the manuscript "book length."
littlelarks's review against another edition
4.0
"But here's what I learned from the deaths in this book: You work. You don't work. You resist. You don't resist. You exert the consummate control. You surrender. You deny. You accept. You pray. You don't pray. You read. You work. You take as many painkillers as you can. You refuse painkillers. You rage against death. You run headlong toward it.
In the end the deaths are the same. They all die. The world releases them."
A beautiful collection of biographical essays. I was head-over-heels with the concept, and though I approached only knowing the works of only two of the chosen subjects, Roiphe kept me interested throughout. I've writen before about my grand preoccupation with death & I appreciate when works like this make me feel less alone.
In the end the deaths are the same. They all die. The world releases them."
A beautiful collection of biographical essays. I was head-over-heels with the concept, and though I approached only knowing the works of only two of the chosen subjects, Roiphe kept me interested throughout. I've writen before about my grand preoccupation with death & I appreciate when works like this make me feel less alone.
superdilettante's review against another edition
4.0
I really loved Roiphe's perspectives on Sontag and Sendak particularly; I skipped over Freud entirely. I would have been interested to see her exploration of more women writers' experiences. The inclusion of photographs of the writers' workspaces made the whole much more poignant.
biblioholicbeth's review against another edition
1.0
I was initially interested in this because I presumed it was writers doing what they do best - writing. Only this time, they were writing about their own unbeatable illnesses, or the spectre of death that follows us all around. What I actually read was a book about these great writers and the end of their days. Nothing inherently wrong with that...except that, often, I found the writing long and drawn out - far past the point of where anything needed to be. It felt almost as if, during the writing, the author was hoping that the longer she wrote, the more death itself would make sense. Unfortunately, death often *doesn't* make sense to those around us, other than being the end that everyone will greet - some sooner than others.
Sadly, I was only able to get about halfway through before I simply could not read anymore. It's rare that I abandon a book (more from simple stubborn refusal), but - this one I did. I'm sure there will be some who might truly get something out of this, or value what they perceive as possible insights given - but as with beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. And these eyes simply could not continue the long slog.
Sadly, I was only able to get about halfway through before I simply could not read anymore. It's rare that I abandon a book (more from simple stubborn refusal), but - this one I did. I'm sure there will be some who might truly get something out of this, or value what they perceive as possible insights given - but as with beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. And these eyes simply could not continue the long slog.