Daily Archives: September 7, 2014

Falling for Autumn

More than any other season, autumn is the most emotionally complex, releasing the full spectrum of human sentiments. Some view it as a beginning; the Jewish New Year begins in autumn, as do school years, football and basketball seasons. Some regard it as the season of abundance when the harvest comes in. Yet others sink into melancholy as sunlight hours decrease and the chilling of the air portends the arrival of winter. People refer to their later years as the autumn of their lives. Nature mercifully provides a burst of color in this season, a visual kiss before baring the landscape and chasing us indoors.

Not surprisingly, autumn generously lends itself to literature and is well represented in poetry, novels and short fiction. Browning (both Robert and Emily), Frost, Keats, Sandburg, Shelley and Whitman are some of the notable poets who have woven autumn into their work. To Autumn by Keats (1795-1821) lusciously details the season from beginning to end, creating an allegory for aging and death.

Novels that use autumn to great effect include Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Lee’s East of Eden, Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch and Irving’s spooky The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Some authors are closely associated with autumn through their writing; they include Poe, Doyle, du Maurier and Stephen King.

Before you know it, you’ll be donning sweaters, raking leaves, enjoying everything to do with apples, spending more time indoors and looking for activities that lift the spirit and warm the soul. What a great time of year to immerse yourself in good books connected to this most interesting of seasons.

Quotable

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus
Autumn … the year’s last, loveliest smile. ― William Cullen Bryant
I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it. ― Lee Maynard
[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer. — Wallace Stegner

Recommended

Check TCM News for information about the two-day Tyrone Power Centennial Celebration in Wilmington, NC, on September 18th and 19th, where you can purchase a collector’s quality limited first edition of Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power by Romina Power. Tyrone Power’s children will be at the events honoring their father and signing books.

If you live or work in or near Milwaukee, mark October 18th on your calendar. The Charles Atlas Art Museum will celebrate the Tyrone Power Centennial with a reception, film historian Dale Kuntz’s interview with actress Taryn Power Greendeer and a screening of the Oscar-nominated classic, Suez. The collector’s quality limited first edition of Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power by Romina Power will be available for purchase and autographing by Taryn.

For more information about these events and the book, contact
tyronepower.firstedition@gmail.com