Summer Brief: About the Author: Initial Research

Over summer I decided on three authors to research into, William Shakespeare, Douglas Adams and Haruki Murakami. I brought two of each of their works, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare, Norweigen Wood and After dark for Haruki Murakami and the first 2 installments of Hitchhikers Guide for Douglas Adams. 

William Shakespeare:

Oldest son of John Shakespeare (who was a glover and then mayor later on) and Mary. Christened in 1564, He lived his early years in Stratford Upon Avon.

He was well educated in a lot of subjects and was thought to have learnt latin, dramatics, rhetoric and logic.

Very little is known of his life before he became a famous playwright, He married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway and had three children. There is speculation of him being a schoolteacher or a player in a gentlemen’s household at this time in his life but no proof.

His reputation as a player increased in 1592, there were jealous comments from other playwrights being made as he became more popular. By 1595 he was in the newly formed Lord Chamberlain’s Players. The following year his son Hammet died.

After this he purchased New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford.

1599 He moved to Southwark near the Globe Theatre which his company had recently erected. 1603 saw his company rise to become the Kings Majesty’s players under Royal patronage.  The next couple of years saw both his daughters married (and one excommunicated from the church for marrying during lent) and the birth of his first grandchild. 1613 saw the Globe Theatre burn during the first premier of Henry VIII. He altered his will in 1616 and died shortly after.

 He was an obvious choice for me to look into, I have spent a lot of time reading his works and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘King Lear’ are two of my favourite novels and they both contain scenes that are dramatic and tangible as well as both being made into modern films.  I also think there is a lot of mystery surrounding him and his plays.

Romeo and Juliet has a lot of scenes to draw from, containing imagery such as floral references, light and dark and love and hate. Although not the easiest to envisage straight away, it would mean I wouldn’t have to literally draw everything as the characters are often compared to as many different things “with nimble soles, I have a soul of lead, so stakes me to the ground I cannot move”. “it is the east, and Juliet is the sun”

King Lear has a lot of weather related scenes which could make for a good chance to practice drawing landscapes as well as being a very heavily themed play to draw from.

Douglas Adams:

Douglas was born in 1952 in Cambridge, His parents divorced in 1957 and he moved to a RSPCA shelter in Essex with his mother and sister run by his maternal grandparents. At nine he passed an entrance exam for Brentwood School, He excelled there for his creative writing and became the only student to be awarded 10/10 for creative writing by his form master Halford. He was unusually tall for his age, reaching six foot when he was only twelve.

He had some early success with writing a Monty Python Sketch and writing a few things for the radio but he had to pick up odd jobs in order to live in London. Some of these included a hospital porter, barn builder and bodyguard. He had also written many other little things and been a script editor for doctor who.

His biggest achievement was writing Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which he originated in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame

I chose to look at Douglas Adams just because I honestly hated most of the other authors on the list and he was one of the only ones I knew I didn’t dislike because I had never read any of his works or seen anything he had links with. I think his life was very interesting and his struggles to eventually write something that went onto global success before his death in 2001. However I find his actual life more interesting than his writings and really struggled to read the novels and make a connection to draw from.

Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami was born January 12, 1949. He was born in Japan during the post- war baby boom, his parents both taught Japanese Literature. Since childhood Murakami was westernised, He grew up reading a large selection of western authors and as a result is a contemporary Japanese writer and is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by this. Murakami began to write fiction when he was 29. "Before that", he said, "I didn't write anything. I was just one of those ordinary people. I was running a jazz club, and I didn't create anything at all."

His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 language and selling millions of copies outside his native country. His fiction is often criticised as Un-Japanese although this has never halted his success.

His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards, both in Japan and internationally, He has also translated a number of English works into Japanese, from Raymond Carver to J. D. Salinger.

He is also considered an important figure in postmodern literature. Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements.

I chose Murakami as one of my authors as he has the ability through his writing to give the sense that you are observing and seeing the whole picture. The clarity in which he describes things I really enjoyed and felt as I was often there with the characters. For me he stood out from the 3 and really encouraged me to try different things out to show the scenes.