have we at any point collectively compiled a list of all the works jeremy strong and jesse armstrong keep referencing as character/story inspiration?
okay i’m gonna do it (but if it’s been done link me). some of these are more relevant than others since jeremy strong is a walking tumblr web weaving post and can’t stop making references.
books/short stories/plays/essays
king lear (shakespeare)
crime and punishment (dostoevsky) (in particular kendall’s post s1 character arc)
the patrick melrose novels (st. aubyn)
the crack up (fitzgerald) (short story collection, namely the titular one)
richard iii (shakespeare) (jeremy referenced the following: “I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.”)
michael wolff book on the murdochs (almost definitely the man who owns the news, 2008)
my struggle (knausgaard, series of 6 books) (“I have taken great risks by not pretending.”)
dante’s inferno (specifically this line from the first canto: “The straight road had been lost sight of.”) (in reference to kendall’s hair situation in 3x8-9, this fucking man istg)
slowness (kundera) (“You get here, and it forces you to decelerate”)
the manchurian candidate (condon)
disneywar (stewart) (“one of Jesse’s go-to books”)
a passion to win (autobiography of sumner redstone, viacom ceo)
“there is a great book about Jerry Levin and Steve Case”—this is probably either fools rush in (munk) or stealing time (klein) but I can’t speak to whether either is great
who is michael ovitz (by michael ovitz) (“Michael Ovitz just released a biography earlier this year that was a really interesting read and very relevant and when the New York article came out a few months (ago) on the Murdochs, Fox News and Trump, it became clear to me that this show – in a way that could not have been foreseen by Jesse Armstrong - has just landed right there in the middle of these major cultural and social fault lines and the show sits right on the fault line of all of these interceptive things: the media landscape, the political landscape and the rise of the 1,0 percent – the dominance of Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Google.”)
a hero of our time (lermontov) (“I ended up thinking about Kendall as the anti-hero of our time.”)
two essays on analytic psychology (jung) (specifically the quote: “only that which is truly oneself has the power to heal”)
american buffalo (play by david mamet)
poems
the well dressed man with a beard (wallace stevens) (“after the final no there comes a yes”)
not waving but drowning (poem by stevie smith) (“I was much too far out all my life / and not waving but drowning”)
the waste land (eliot) (unknown passages quoted so I will generously painfully refrain from quoting every line that makes me think of succession and leave you with only: fear death by water)
movies/shows
festen/the celebration (1998 film)
born rich (hbo documentary about the j&j family)
references jeremy strong makes that may or may not be relevant but journalists want us to know he won’t shut up about them:
cy twombly (no works referenced but my favorite series of his is fifty days of iliam if anyone wants to look at some art)
honoré de balzac (included primarily because honor the ball sack is a hilarious name I am so sorry my dude)
lawrence ferlinghetti
rainer maria rilke
chekhov, in the sense that, like, chekhov is a comedy? mr strong I am kissing you on the mouth
pianist keith jarrett (“I connect every music-making experience I have, including every day here in the studio, with a great power, and if I do not surrender to it nothing happens.”) (highly recommend the köln concert)
playwright harold pinter (“The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression”)
threnody for the victims of hiroshima (musical composition by krzysztof penderecki) (jeremy strong listens to get into sad kendall mode)
send me more if you think of them!
