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Born to Be Posthumous The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey Mark Dery 9780316188548 Books

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Born to Be Posthumous The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey Mark Dery 9780316188548 Books

Maybe I should have waited to write this review until I finished, but I felt compelled to do this halfway through the book. The biographer relentlessly pushes the gay issue regarding Gorey's sexuality on almost every page so far. It gets tedious and it's non-stop, to the point where I skip over paragraphs because of this. He even comments on "The Bug Book" saying that the two lead bugs are the same color and most likely the same sex. Really??? Who knows if Gorey was homosexual or asexual. Who cares to this much of a degree? There IS a sexuality called asexuality, but it seems that the author won't except this in Gorey's case. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the parts that don't relentlessly talk about Gorey being a homosexual.


Tags : Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey [Mark Dery] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div><b>The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.</b></div><div> </div><div>From The Gashlycrumb Tinies</i> to The Doubtful Guest</i>,Mark Dery,Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey,Little, Brown and Company,0316188549,American authors;Biography.,Authors, American - Biography,Authors, American;20th century;Biography.,Biographies,Gorey, Edward,Illustrators;United States;Biography.,AMERICAN LITERATURE - INDIVIDUAL,ART Individual Artists General,ArtIndividual Artists - General,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Artists, Architects, Photographers,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Literary Figures,Biography,Biography & AutobiographyArtists, Architects, Photographers,BiographyAutobiography,Edward Gorey; Gorey biography:queer history; biography; art history; gothic; 20th century; children's classic; non-fiction; humor,Edward Gorey; Gorey biography:queer history; biography; art history; gothic; 20th century; children's classic; non-fiction; humor,GENERAL,General Adult,ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS,Non-Fiction,United States

Born to Be Posthumous The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey Mark Dery 9780316188548 Books Reviews

Gorey profiles, until now, have been either serviceable but sketchy, like extended Wikipedia entries, or merely entertaining, colorful but anecdotal. Now cultural critic Mark Dery has given the world not only our first exhaustively comprehensive Gorey biography, but also a brilliantly insightful analysis of the artist's unique place in the culture. And he does so compellingly. Gorey lives in these pages, coming to life in Dery's conversations with just about everyone the man knew or worked with in his seventy-five years. His art finds new life for us as we see it for the first time in the context of Gorey's world.
<Born To Be Posthumous> by Mark Dery is a 500 pg. biography of artist/author Edward Gorey who lived from 1925 to 2000. Another reviewer has suggested that it is hard to write the definitive biography of a self-contained or introverted person (Gorey in this case) who made little or no effort to be popular. I agree.

Prior to reading <Born To Be Posthumous> I had read two shorter biographical-in-nature books about Gorey

I think that I fit the description of the typical admirer of Edward Gory in that I had never heard of him until 1980. That was when Public TV began a weekly series known as 'Mystery'. That series' episodes featured a short lead-in consisting of a Gorey-drawn, tinted, pen-and-ink cartoon of mysterious Edwardian characters appropriately dressed. That lead-in was offered in conjunction with an introduction featuring actor Vincent Price. Price sometimes described the TV location as 'Gorey Manor.' After Price came Diana Rigg to perform the introductions.

Mr. Dery's book makes it plain that Edward Gorey was already fairly well-known in New York City. It was there that he caused himself to be noticed because of his usual garb of a long fur coat and sneakers. I might as well use this paragraph to tell readers that I learned from author Dery that Gorey had an I.Q. of circa 160, and was born and reared in Chicago; and also went with his parents to live in Florida for a time.

I won't describe <Born To Be Posthumous> as an exciting book. But it is informative in a quiet way and is somewhat of a scholarly product. I think that the book will attract enough of a readership over time to cause it to be commercially successful. While reading it over the course of several days I noticed that it wasn't a work to cause me to want to get right back to reading it after a pause. But I remained in a mood or state to want to finish it.

Edward Gorey found enough of a niche among the reading public to cause him to be able to lead a comfortable life. His typical book (and there are many) is short and thin. It contains the author's expert, unusual manner of pen-and-ink, tightly- drafted illustrations, plus prose (or poetry) that will never be called 'wordy' by anyone. He also illustrated books by other authors and was successful as a designer for stage plays, especially one called "Dracula."

Author Dery focuses on the question of Gorey's sexuality. Gorey seemed to many to be gay. Some believe that he was asexual, though (says the author) he had 'crushes' of certain men. To this reader/reviewer it makes little or no difference to the quality of the book what his sexual proclivities, if any, were. Over the years Gorey attracted a substantial readership. His books continue to be sought after. Other authors have been influenced by his artistic style. Gorey's works are especially noticeable due to his unusually dark way of treating characters who are children.

I believe that Edward Gorey will continue to be known or admired mostly because of the books and art he has produced, rather than via biographical material written by other authors. He is described in Dery's book on the last page of the work's body (pg. 415) as ". . . the most one-of-a-kind person you'd ever meet." This reviewer agrees.
Excellent. The Gorey biography we've been waiting for. Recommended for Edward Gorey fans and those already familiar with his work.
I discovered Edward Gorey while pursuing a graduate degree at Harvard, where Gorey was an undergraduate some decades before. As a matter of fact, a friend found a shoebox of Gorey juvenilia in a closet in an apartment somewhere in the Cambridge ambit. The papers were obviously for real, but who knew how they wound up there? And who remembers what became of them? (I seem to recall an attempt to unload them at the Gotham Book Mart, the late, lamented shop in Manhattan's Diamond District that was Gorey Central.) Years later, I used to catch glimpses of his towering, reedlike silhouette in the lobby of the New York State Theater, as it then was, during intermission at the New York City Ballet, whose performances he frequented perhaps even more religiously than George Balanchine, the company's founding genius.

I mention all this to indicate a certain willingness to get down in the weeds where Gorey's art and biography are concerned. Expected great things of this book, and to be fair, the research is exhaustive. Unfortunately, the author never says once what he can say a hundred times (harping on Gorey's Anglophilia, his eccentric dress code, the rings on his fingers, his camp sensibility, his unwillingness to be labeled gay or not guy). And much of the detail is, quite simply, boring. Clichés abound. Of Gorey's many gifts, two that have failed to rub off on his biographer are economy and concentration. A reader must do a lot of panning for precious little gold.
Maybe I should have waited to write this review until I finished, but I felt compelled to do this halfway through the book. The biographer relentlessly pushes the gay issue regarding Gorey's sexuality on almost every page so far. It gets tedious and it's non-stop, to the point where I skip over paragraphs because of this. He even comments on "The Bug Book" saying that the two lead bugs are the same color and most likely the same sex. Really??? Who knows if Gorey was homosexual or asexual. Who cares to this much of a degree? There IS a sexuality called asexuality, but it seems that the author won't except this in Gorey's case. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the parts that don't relentlessly talk about Gorey being a homosexual.