← Press Play On This Uplifting Full Audiobook And Feel The Difference.
Press Play On This Uplifting Full Audiobook And Feel The Difference.
What's with Baum? by Woody Allen
05:22:00
Listen to audiobooks on thebookvoice.com
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
All I'm trying to do is make lucid this miniscule hype of hysteria I routinely inhabit. Oh, no, maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe what I really want is to make sense of all people's lives, of everything the whole Shebang Baum wanted in his writing to bring order to the chaos and tragic truth that seemed to cloud mankind's every sunrise. Long ago he had declared war, an audent sound of distant thunder at the picnic. He believed he could best wage this battle with the human condition as a novelist by writing moving literature. These works must be great, he thought, because the night is large and the enemy is full of dirty tricks. He decided early on he could not fight the fight as a mere journalist, reporting on the mundane ups and downs of reality. Fiction, he felt, was more real than reality, more capable of approaching the soul and getting to the truth of what the hell is going on, for Christ's sake? Who's in charge here? He wanted his books to have an impact, to change people's perspective, and for that he needed to get the whole thing right. He did not want to march victim like into eternity. Not having left behind at least a few volumes that helped ease the way for others, he was determined his tombstone should not read here lies Asher Baum. So what? He could no longer talk to his wife, not about the things that mattered most to him. There's too much hostility with Connie, too much anger, too much disappointment. No more patience with my complaining, he thought. Fourteen years that began with dinner dates and flowers had threw the drip, drip, drip, drip of broken dreams. And things said that could not be taken back formed a critical mass ready to detonate. She's five years younger than me, he figured. Still very beautiful, still desirable, still with that biting instinct for the jugular which he once found so attractive. Of course Dracula had a biting instinct for the jugular. But now it was bounds. I guess in some ways I still love that complex thoroughbred, he thought. But I certainly can't talk to her, not without quickly getting on her nerves. Nor can I talk to my brother Josh, because he's sleeping with her, or has once, or I think he has. I'm not positive. I feel our conversations have grown stilted. And while I love him, I do not trust him. And because I cannot reveal my suspicions, suspicions as they would hurt him, we can't talk. I mean, we can speak, but not from the heart. Or at least not from my heart. Did I mention he slept with Connie? Yes, of course. I just did. Great. All I need is to start repeating myself. That would be the icing on the cake. I also can't talk to my first wife, Nina. Too guilty. I was such a meshuganeh and she was so nice. My first signs of irrational behavior were with Nina. Baum had married at 21, anxious to move out of his parents house and begin his life as a young newspaperman, he fell for a pretty Barnard student, Nina Glass, who happened to be an identical twin. Meanwhile, after two months of marriage, he fell in love with a twin sister, Anne. Let's just say Shakespearean comedy did not follow. But what did caused Nina great suffering and Baum bewilderment, guilt and self loathing. He talked it over with an analyst who sought the answer in Baum's dreams. But what worked so well for Joseph and the Pharaoh didn't seem to click on that couch and the little room on. He didn't have any idea what had become of the Glass twins. But he knew if he ever saw either of them he would be too ashamed to speak. He had long ago given up talking with shrinks because in order for analysis to work, the patient must be willing to change. And the only change bound was willing to make was the analyst. He also could not talk to his second wife, Tyler. For one thing, she lived in New Zealand. But more important than distance, she had dumped Baum and gone off with some rock drummer who got very rich, very young, retired at 30, bought a farm in Walter Peak Station and raised.