Word: diarist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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David Silver, as the diarist narrator, with his sheared hair, unshaven face and ripped pajamas, appears a convincing lunatic. Moreover, he delivers his many long monologues with the curious self-absorption of a madman, drawing the audience into his twisted world where dogs write letters, the earth is crashing into the moon and a Russian bureaucrat can discover that he's actually the king of Spain. As he loses himself more and more in his delusions, the real pain behind his situation becomes clear, and the audience realizes that class boundaries separate him forever from the general's daughter with...
...great troves for students of 20th century American diplomacy was left by Henry Stimson, a tireless diarist and letter writer who served a number of stints as Secretary of War and State from 1911 until 1945. Stimson was the man who ordered the dismantling of a government code-breaking outfit, later explaining "Gentlemen do not read other people's mail." This mind-set led to some very frank and revealing letters and diary entries. Historians piecing together the momentous decisions of World War II have the luxury of comparing personal writings in which Stimson and Navy Secretary James Forrestal describe...
...with France is over. Napoleon Bonaparte has been driven into exile on the island of Elba; long live King Louis XVIII! Celebrations follow. Talbot is invited to dine with Sir Henry Somerset, captain of the Alcyone, and meets Lady Somerset's protegee, Miss Marion Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley). The diarist not only falls in love but also must struggle hopelessly to find some fresh way of describing his feelings: "Forgive a young man, a young fool, his ardours and ecstasies! I understand now that the world will only give ear to them in the mouth of genius...
Perhaps in Vienna, where the diarist makes one of her more bizarre entries: "Laszlo Szapary and Erwein Schonborn . . . both had just dug themselves out of the Palais Schonborn, where a bomb had crashed into the courtyard before they could reach the cellar. The building is pretty battered and they are now fishing among the wreckage for Erwein's shooting trophies; he had many ivory tusks mounted in silver, as well as two stuffed orangoutans." The power of Vassiltchikov's observations lies in her restraint: "These last days innumerable inscriptions in chalk have appeared on the blackened walls of wrecked houses...
...Prince Illarion and Princess Lydia Vassiltchikov of St. Petersburg. The family left the Soviet Union in 1919 to live in Germany, France and Lithuania, then an independent republic. During the Depression of the 1930s, Missie and her sister Tatiana (a future Princess Metternich) sought work in Berlin. The diarist's fluent English landed her a job as a translator with the Foreign Ministry's information department. After the war, she and her husband, Architect Peter Harnden, had four children. He died in 1971 in Barcelona. Missie then moved to London, where she died of leukemia seven years later...