Talk:Sterling Hayden

Sterling Hayden was a great writer. His autobiography is a vivid and riveting pastiche that moves forward & backward in time: much like film. What a life!!. Besides being a first class sailor he was an avid readerer of Novels, nonfiction & philosophy; books with substance which made him feel like an outsider whether he was at sea or in Hollywood. So in a sense, he was "at sea" much of his life. As a writer he "found his voice" relatively late in life. Also , between the lines, it is pretty clear that he drank too much. WANDERER is both brutally frank & vulnerably candid. Both WANDERER & VOYAGE are very "gritty". VOYAGE: A NOVEL OF 1896 is a long, rich, vivid multi-themed epic with vividly realized characters, powerfully constructed multiple plots full of brooding ruminations about capitalism vs socialism; & rugged invididuality vs team work, the decadence of material surfit & the tragedy of abject poverty; the working conditions of 19th c sailors & the struggles of teh labor movement. PLUS the war bewteen the sexes in 1896: & all this between the lines of a wallopping page turner that is totally true to its period detail. It has at least 12 major characters & a host of lesser ones ALL FULLY REALIZED. I read it & immmediately though "Thomas Hardy does Existentialism". It would make a GREAT FILM, but to do it justice it would have to be as long as LORD OF THE RINGS,with the same monumental attention to detail. I wonder who has the film rights.

I agree. Thanks to Wikipedia for making an article like this possible. This article is really well done, especially with the quotes and cites to "Wanderer" and other sources. Hayden would be proud to be remembered as the great writer he certainly was. Judging by the fact that both his books are still in print, his writing has a lot of fans. I hope someone will add something more about "Voyage." McTeague 04:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)