Jonathan Baumbach
Jonathan Baumbach | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, U.S. | July 5, 1933
Died | March 28, 2019 Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 85)
Occupation | Novelist, film critic |
Education | Brooklyn College (BA) Columbia University (MFA) Stanford University (PhD) |
Spouse | Naomi Miller (annulled) Ellie Berkman (divorced) Georgia Brown (divorced) Annette Grant |
Children | 4, including Noah |
Jonathan Baumbach (July 5, 1933 – March 28, 2019) was an American author, academic and film critic.
Life and career
Baumbach was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn,[1][2] the son of Ida Helen (Zackheim), a teacher, and Harold M. Baumbach, a painter and academic.[1][3] His father's disdain for earning tenure at the University of Iowa and various other schools resulted in him moving every year for the first six years of Jonathan's life "looking for a new place to paint."[4]
He received a
Having had his third novel rejected 32 times, he and Peter Spielberg founded the author-run publishing house
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Baumbach was film critic for Partisan Review. He twice chaired the National Society of Film Critics.[5]
Baumbach was married four times: his first marriage, to, Naomi Miller, was brief and annulled; his second and third marriages, to Ellie Berkman and Georgia Brown, ended in divorce; his fourth marriage, to New York Times arts editor Annette Grant, ended when she died in February 2019.[1] He has four children: David Baumbach, a photographer; Nina Baumbach; filmmaker Noah Baumbach[10] (in two of whose films he had acting roles)[11] and Nico Baumbach, partner of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker and an assistant professor of film at Columbia University.
Baumbach died on March 28, 2019, at his home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.[1]
Work
Preceded by his academic activity and on the heels of a critical study, 1965's The Landscape of Nightmare: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel, Baumbach's first novel, A Man to Conjure With, published the same year, "synthesizes various trends outlined in his critical study" and "has a protagonist who moves simultaneously backward and forward in time, carefully orchestrating revelations of plot and character so that the present is gradually understood in a plausible and convincing way. As a result, the narrative is assembled as a psychological collage."[citation needed] In the novels which followed, Baumbach has been said to be 'representative of a new style of novelist' alongside contemporaries
His second novel, What Comes Next, further explores the themes in his critical study and 'organizes itself as a literal landscape of nightmare, as all reference points for the character's reality are located within his own disjointed perceptions. As far as temporal narrative, "what comes next" is created from the workings of his mind.'.[citation needed] His reputation as an experimental novelist develops further with his third novel, Reruns, which "abandons plot and character entirely in favor of dream-like images from movies rerun page by page."[citation needed] In his fourth, Babble, Baumbach constructs his narrative from "the stories his infant son allegedly tells him."[citation needed]
Baumbach's work has been compared with the dreamlike filmic style of David Lynch and is often grouped with postmodernists like William Gaddis, Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover. At the same time, he is acclaimed for a "singular fictional voice."[9]
Novels
- A Man to Conjure With (1965)
- What Comes Next (1968)
- Reruns (1974)
- Babble (1976)
- Chez Charlotte and Emily (1979)
- My Father, More of Less (1982)
- Separate Hours (1990)
- Seven Wives: A Romance (1994)
- D-Tours (1998)
- B, a novel (2002)
- YOU or the Invention of Memory (2007)
- Dreams of Molly (2011)
Short fiction
- The Return of Service (1979)
- The Life and Times of Major Fiction (1987)
- On The Way To My Father's Funeral - New And Selected Stories (2004)[12]
- The Pavilion of Former Wives (2016)
Nonfiction
- The Landscape of Nightmare: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel (1965)
- Shots In The Dark: Collected Film Criticism (2017)
References
- ^ a b c d e Genzlinger, Neil (April 5, 2019). "Jonathan Baumbach, Novelist With an Experimental Bent, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
- ^ ISBN 978-0313294624.
baumbach.
- ^ "Baumbach, Jonathan 1933- | Encyclopedia.com".
- ^ a b "The Baumbachs: Three generations of creative life". 16 September 2015.
- ^ a b "Shots In The Dark | The Critical Press". thecriticalpress.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-01.
- ^ Klinkowitz, Jerome (October 20, 1974). "A novel publishing idea". Chicago Tribune Book World. p. 9. Retrieved October 2, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Gattis, Murray (October 6, 1974). "Fiction Collective Bucks a Trend". Los Angeles Times. p. 20 Calendar. Retrieved October 2, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (October 21, 1974). "Three publishable novels from Fiction Collective". Baltimore Sun. p. B2. Retrieved October 2, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Jonathan Baumbach Kicks and Screams in 'Dreams of Molly'". The New York Observer. 27 April 2011.
- ^ New York Magazine: "Brooklyn Boy: Noah Baumbach" retrieved October 11, 2015
- user-generated source]
- ^ Bergman, J. Peter (April 24, 2005). "Baumbach's compelling short stories offer lessons that demand time and attention". The Berkshire (Massachusetts) Eagle. p. E2. Retrieved October 18, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.