The Week in History, April 19th – 25th
Charles R. Johnson, c 20131
“You can’t escape history, or the needs and neuroses you’ve picked up like layers and layers of tartar on your teeth…. Your every past action and thought have made you what you are.” — Charles R. Johnson 2
Author, buddhist, journalist, scholar, martial artist and retired University of Washington English professor,3 Charles R. Johnson was born this week in 1948.4
In 1990, his historical novel, Middle Passage,5 won the National Book Award for fiction.6 Middle Passage has been described as a book written by a philosopher, a story of personal growth and redemption and a swashbuckling adventure at sea with supernatural elements.7,8
Johnson is a prolific author in a diversity of mediums and genres. As a creative writing instructor, he felt he had to be conversant in most varieties of literature to be able to help his students with their various works.9
When asked which book was his favorite gift, the answer wasn’t just a book but 18 in a series: The World Book Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia became valuable to him over the years not only as a fact-finding resource, but for its ability to inspire and generate ideas.9
His novel, Middle Passage, may be found in the Cannell Library at PS3560.O3735 M5 1990
This week sees the birthdays of two authors born on the same day but 132 years apart. They also share a literary connection.
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre10
The eldest of her three surviving sisters,12 Charlotte Bronte is best known as the author of Jane Eyre13 a major worked that has been further adapted into other mediums such as live theater14 and film.
Charlotte and her sisters felt it necessary to first publish their writing under masculine pseudonyms in order to be accepted seriously by the literary world of their time. Their works were further distinguished by the fact that Charlotte Bronte and her sisters had first hand experience of the hard life a woman had to endure to make her way in the world. They used the constraints of their world to inform their readership of the trials that woman such as themselves were forced to suffer, turning their private adversities into material for their novels.15
Bronte began work on her final novel, Emma, in 1853 but was not able to finish it before her death two years later.
To find out more about Charlotte Bronte, check out the ebook, The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Vol. I, authored by her contemporary, Elizabeth C. Gaskell, from the Clark Libraries.
“She is insolently grown-up for her size. I suspect the influence of unsupervised reading.”
“Please forgive my appearance. I am lately come from setting a house on fire.”
― Clare Boylan, Emma Brown16
Journalist and novelist Clare Boylan was an accomplished writer in her own right before her death at age 58 from ovarian cancer.
Boylan became inspired by the remaining twenty page manuscript of Charlotte Bronte’s Emma, and fashioned her own novel, Emma Brown18 after research and consulting with Bronte scholars.
You can check out, Emma Brown, from the Clark Libraries. PR6052.O9193 E47 2004
1 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles-Johnson.jpg
2 https://www.azquotes.com/author/50052-Charles_R_Johnson
3 https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/retired-uw-professor-still-enlivening-the-literary-world/
4 https://biography.jrank.org/pages/4469/Johnson-Charles-Richard.html
5 https://www.npr.org/2015/08/01/428448005/a-look-back-on-middle-passage-the-evolution-of-a-literary-classic
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Book_Award_for_Fiction
7 https://johnpistelli.com/2016/05/24/charles-johnson-middle-passage/
8 https://alexsheremet.com/review-charles-johnsons-middle-passage/
9 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/books/review/charles-johnson-by-the-book.html
10 https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1036615.Charlotte_Bront_
11 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CharlotteBrontePortrait.jpg
12 https://www.bronte.org.uk/the-brontes-and-haworth/family-and-friends/charlotte-bronte
13 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jane-Eyre-novel-by-Bronte
14 https://www.playscripts.com/play/1388
15 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-brontes-secret/480726/
16 https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23612.Clare_Boylan
17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Boylan#/media/File:BoylanClare.jpg
18 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/books/reader-she-finished-it.html
