
From a Darkened Room
The Inman Diary
Arthur C. Inman(Author)
Daniel Aaron(Editor)
Harvard University Press
Published on 1. October 1996
Book
Paperback/Softback
592 pages
978-0-674-45443-9 (ISBN)
Description
Only a few of us seek immortality, and fewer still by writing. But Arthur Inman challenged the odds. He calculated that if he kept a diary and spared no thoughts or actions, was entirely honest and open, and did not care about damage or harm to himself or others, he would succeed in gaining attention beyond the grave that he could not attain in life.
The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster.
This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published by Harvard as The Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession.
The diary became a many-layered and strikingly animated work of a gifted writer, by turns charming, repellent, shocking, cruel, and comical. But the diary is also an uninhibited history of his times, of his eccentricities and fantasies, of his bizarre marriage arrangements and sexual adventures. Inman's explorations of his own troubled nature made him excessively curious about the secret lives of others. Like some ghostly doctor-priest, he chronicled their outpourings of head and heart as vividly as he did his own. The diary reads like a nonfiction novel as it moves inexorably toward disaster.
This is an abridged version of the celebrated two-volume work published by Harvard as The Inman Diary: A Public and Private Confession.
Reviews / Votes
A fascinating document, by turns bizarre and illuminating, poignant and obscene...Delving into Inman's diary is like being able to eavesdrop on a conversation in a priest's confessional or psychotherapist's office...It also presents the social historian with a panorama of the twentieth century viewed from an exotic angle. -- Michael Vincent Miller * New York Times * A sometimes trenchant, sometimes caustic account of Inman's times. * Washington Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
23 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
835 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-45443-9 (9780674454439)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Daniel Aaron was Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University.