Oscar Wilde’s talk inspired his rise and led to his downfall

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/oscar-wilde-s-talk-inspired-his-rise-and-led-to-his-downfall-1.3917086

by lermontov • 7 years ago

44 42 7 years ago

rabidrat• 7 years ago

Among the many hardships of prison life, perhaps the greatest for Wilde, was the absence of talk. The “silent” system then in operation, condemned men to a solitary existence in their cells; and even during the short interludes of exercise and divine worship all talking was forbidden. Without talk Wilde lost part of his own identity.

The 'silent treatment' of this prison system indeed seems cruel and unusual.

B1FF_PSUVM• 7 years ago

One of the "Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries" by Gyles Brandreth is set in the convict years of Oscar Wilde, and goes into detail about the prison life.

The period settings seem quite well researched, and are rather grim. But the writer also managed to make a decent whodunnit out of it.

bryanrasmussen2• 7 years ago

Dramatization of the after prison time is also grim - I recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melmoth_(comics)

hluska• 7 years ago

Agreed. The fact that he was convicted of ‘sodomy’, sentenced to two horrible years and the world lost him just a few short years later is absolutely criminal.

dnlbyl• 7 years ago

“the golden rule of conversation” was “to know nothing accurately.”

I've witnessed so many fun conversations killed by someone looking up the facts on their phone.

TeMPOraL3• 7 years ago

And I've witnessed so many conversations ending up with people believing bullshit, because nobody knew anything accurately and nobody really cared.

Some conversations are held for fun, others for exchange of information. Nothing good comes from the two goals getting mixed up.

mrspeaker• 7 years ago

My advice is don't hang out with people who believe in bullshit, or look things up on their phones. Hard to find, but worth the effort!

dr_dshiv2• 7 years ago

"Never let facts get in the way of a good story"

m4632• 7 years ago

Being factually correct is probably not the best way to get someone to go home with you.

bryanrasmussen2• 7 years ago

If one can't converse intelligently when the truth of the subject is known then one has nothing worth saying on that subject.

m4632• 7 years ago

"listen, will you get on your phone and find that actor's name?"

"Oh of course that's him, brilliant! And he was in that other movie, what was it? yes, that was the one!"

solidsnack9000• 7 years ago

It is important to keep always in mind that Wilde had been born into a world of talk. The sound of human voices – vital, informed, humorous, provocative – flowed around him from the moment of his birth...

This is such an odd truism. It is like saying a young chef's early life was redolent with food, or that a young interior decorator was born into a home filled with furniture.

neonate2• 7 years ago

It's more like saying a young chef's early life was redolent with, say, Tuscan food. The Irish are masters of talk.

coldtea• 7 years ago

You'd be surprised how many households have not many "voices" flowing around -- but silence, solitude, anger, confusion, addiction, and other issues.

And even less have "vital, informed, humorous, provocative" voices flowing.

arkades• 7 years ago

This is true.

Since my first child was born and I suddenly had the responsibility of modeling conversation so that they could learn to speak, I became acutely aware of my and my wife’s inclination towards comfortable silences.

stebann• 7 years ago

Love the way reality was mirrored in this answer. So hard is life, even today, when I look back, I feel hunted because of the silence and solitude of my childhood.

oh_sigh• 7 years ago

Not all families talk the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_gap

asark• 7 years ago

The Hart & Risley book that's kinda the foundation of all this is a pretty good read. Not exactly a page turner but nowhere near the sleep aid one might expect, either.

lb1lf• 7 years ago

Work is the curse of the drinking class.

-Oscar Wilde.

The man is the undisputed king of one-liners.

univalent• 7 years ago

On fox hunting by English country gentlemen: “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable!”

mjklin• 7 years ago

I find that alcohol, when taken in sufficient quantities, can produce all the effects of drunkenness.

- Oscar Wilde

inflatableDodo4• 7 years ago

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions, a quotation.

cafard2• 7 years ago

Depends. It is said that once after Whistler got off a good line, Wilde said, "I wish I'd said that!", to which Whistler replied "Don't worry, Oscar, you will."

In his Life of Waller, Samuel Johnson remarked of another one-liner

"Such is the story, which I once heard of some other man. Pointed axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate."

(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5098/5098-0.txt)

DoreenMichele3• 7 years ago

The 1973 movie Papillon talks a bit about how terrible it is to be sentenced to silence. It's based on an autobiography and was supposedly fairly accurate, though it is about a French colonial prison system, not the English system.

My maiden name is Irish in origin. My father was quite the raconteur. My German mother was one of twelve children. Talk was a very big thing at home and it seems to get me in plenty of social hot water.

My expectation that online discussion forums are places for in depth discussion appears to generally be out of step with the expectations of most denizens of the internet. I've worked at toning it down, but remain baffled that actually talking with people gets so many negative reactions.

I enjoyed the article. It felt like a tiny slice of my own life reflected back to me and explained to some degree.

godzillabrennus• 7 years ago

I encourage debate on my Facebook page between differing ideologies because I grew up in a home where that kind of discourse was not only expected but encouraged. There are people who start throwing death threats at one another when they disagree with their ideas.

We are definitely living in interesting times. I remain uneasy about the future of the freedom I so enjoy.

DoreenMichele3• 7 years ago

Yeah, it's also shockingly common for people to hang weird and hostile interpretations on any statement whatsoever. I have seen conversations that went roughly:

"I love my hometown of Denver for thus and such features."

"Hey, asshole. Why are you talking trash about my hometown of Columbus, Ohio?!!!"

Um, dude. He said nothing at all about your city. Get a grip already.

baud1472582• 7 years ago

I haven't watched the movie, but I read the book it adapted. If I recall right, the main feel (theme?) of the book was not "how terrible it is to be sentenced to silence", but closer to the feel of an adventure book, with the author telling about evasion attempts (successful or not), living on the run and living with an Indian tribe in South America. There are also depictions of the inmates' life in the French prison system. According to Wikipedia the autobiographical authenticity of the book is questioned, which I'm not too surprised about.

DoreenMichele3• 7 years ago

I wasn't suggesting it was the main theme by any stretch of the imagination. But the scene commenting on how terrible it was to be compelled to silence made the single biggest impression on me from the entire movie, even though there are plenty of powerful scenes.

ncmncm2• 7 years ago

I always had the feeling, reading Wilde, of him standing in the firelight surrounded, on all sides, by slavering beasts staring and waiting for him to stray a just a step too far.

At least HH Munro's end was quick.

neonate2• 7 years ago

That's a haunting image, but it's so close to the premise of this classic Monty Python sketch that my mind leaps immediately to it anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uycsfu4574w.

ncmncm2• 7 years ago

Hadn't seen that. Tx.

cafard2• 7 years ago

In his Autobiographies, Yeats is most interesting on Wilde as the talker.

Oscar Wilde’s talk inspired his rise and led to his downfall

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