Re: The authors That One Loves
Ed Fenning (ed361@yahoo.com)
Mon, 26 Jul 1999 22:04:02 -0400 (EDT)
Love is a very strong word. Being monogamous, I could only love one
author at a time, hopefully after meeting her and finding that being
in each other’s company weaves a bit of magic.
Rather than “…authors that one loves…” it’s those you remember; that
are always with you. The works, or work of someone who viscerally
moves you as you’re reading them. Something you’ve read has
momentarily made your stomach feel like you’re standing at a precipace
lookout point, with only a railing to separate you from below. And
whatever empathy, insight, you’ve just gleaned always remains – you
always carry it around in your head for inspiration, or maybe just a
good laugh whenever you need it.
In no particular order:
Pynchon – he’s somethin’ else – all of the above.
V.S. Naipaul – writes very well with irony and humor about “half
made” societies modern colonialism - poverty in the shadow of
“Hiltons”
Allen Ginsburg – “downtown 7 th Ave. Express” poetry. I have no
other explanations or superlatives. I just like it.
Mary Gordon – for writing with insight about women and Catholicism
(I’m not, so it’s always interesting to read when someone explores the
latter originally)
Henry Roth – Call It Sleep. I read it and felt as though as I
entered Manhattan’s lower east side in a novel length Bunuel dream
sequence.
James Joyce – His personal portraits of Dublin. Bloom upliffeying
and paddling along, trying to understand; like all of us.
J.D. Salinger - Holden, grabbed all of us, Salinger’s compassion
for a kid so troubled; and no one else has written of family members
quite like Salinger.
Sartre – The novels “The Reprieve” and “Troubled Sleep” The former
conveying so well the anxiety that gripped France during the Munich
crises, the latter for chillingly capturing peoples’ reaction the
defeat of and the subsequent, ominous silence throughout Paris in June
1940 before the invaders arrived.
Mary Daly – Theology not literature. Difficult to read and I’ve
only read her in small bits. She writes about and says things that
other’s can’t find or are afraid to say. Her style is take no
prisoners: her later books are like a lesbian feminist rock band turned
up to eleven fronting a light show at the old Fillmore West transferred
to the printed page.
Jean Shepherd - Flick lives!!
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