Family...what a thing...Which Writer of Greatness Wrote Most Poignantly of them?

Reflecting about family. It is a snow day, which may be incidental to my reflections. I have a cold. Again, perhaps not related.

Families.

We all have them whether we know them or not.

We all have one. Or many.

Our human family traces many climes and {break, 1/28/2015}

Again, trying to wrap these up... Oldies and unfinished.

Till now!

So: what else? 

We are in 2021! Ach, nein! The pandemic is full upon us!

Oh, this pandemic color... 

Why not more purple? Sure! Dast is zer gut! 

 

Way back in 2015 my idea was that I was going to drum up a few names of famous (or infamous)  writers and authors that wrote about their families in the most poignant or touching way[s].

 

C.S. Lewis wrote fondly of his wife, about whom he met later in life. And, she also ended up dying young, which made for very touching prose and reflections.

 

Isabel Allende. Speaking of dying, (not trying to be glib), but she dedicated a whole book to the sad, noble, humbling, painful, instructive, death of her daughter. Paula.

 

Paul Theroux: He has written the nearer to end of the life (as an older guy: he has written many books before age 6) book Motherland, which I read. It is largely autobiographical, but he has taken a lot of license for creativity as well. I had read about his family in his writings before, but this one gets into a lot of things that provoke thoughts and provide some insight and comparison or psychological ruminations, that makes one think of ourselves and others in perhaps new or reminiscing nostalgia, revisiting factors that we had forgotten or not considered in such ways.

Kafka, the Franz kind. From Prague, Czechia (as known now, 2020s). A very entertaining and gifted, perhaps prescient writer. Known to be paranoid or unhinged mentally, he wrote for himself, apparently, and not for many others, the millions these generations that read him still today. He wanted all his writings destroyed; he died at an early age, but luckily his friend retained his works and eventually they were published. Perhaps there was a profit motive involved? He writes a very long, scathing letter to his father in this anthology of his works that I purchased at a good price, a paperback.  Does that count for poignant? Perhaps Kafka was off on a irrational rant, but it is very heart felt and full of pathos.

Well, there have to be more family related books, articles, and reports of great authors who write about their family (plus the not so "great" writers): in the vast and ever-growing realm of printed prose and poetry (hello Amanda Gorman of Presidential Inauguration fame!), but I wish to end it here and potentially get some feedback on those who have other opinions and feedback about family related insights and recordings over the years. There have to be many memoirs and journals, like I can now think of Donny Osmond writing a memoir at age 40 that struck me as very interesting. Celebrities are definitely people, too, and Donny had very interesting things to share. I became aware of his anxiety order, which I wished to share with family that have suffered with different mental issues and problems...

There: the last two authors with mental problems, how is that?

Many greats ones have had them and do, neuroses or psychoses, so that is part of the family insights and sharing, the good, the bad, and the poignant.

 

Blogged it, but wanting more...