'Of the Greatest Importance to You'

A friend reminds me of some obligatory readerly observances coming up in 2022. First, the birthdays: 

April 27: the bicentennial of Ulysses Grant’s birth

 

August 19: the centenary of Philip Larkin’s birth

 

August 24: the sesquicentennial of Max Beerbohm’s birth  

 

November 21: the 120^th birthday of Isaac Bashevis Singer

 

And the deaths:

 

July 10: the centenary of Marcel Proust’s death

 

September 26: the 70^th anniversary of George Santayana’s death

 

I’ll add some others:

 

January 9: the 85^th birthday of Joseph Epstein

 

February 2: the 140^th birthday of James Joyce and the centenary of the publication of Ulysses

 

February 21: the 115^th birthday of W.H. Auden

 

April 14: the 70^th anniversary of the publication of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

 

May 21: the 70^th anniversary of  the publication of Whittaker Chambers’ Witness

 

May 28: the 60^th anniversary of the publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire

 

June 18: the 90^th birthday of Geoffrey Hill

 

October 6: the 130^th anniversary of the death of Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

And another: On May 27 we will celebrate the 100^th birthday of John Cheever, who wrote in his Journals (1991) in 1975: “And I remember a letter from my father: ‘Do not underestimate the importance of anniversaries—Christmas, birthdays, and so forth. They are of the greatest importance to you and the people you live with.’”