writerly obsessions

[chelseagirl]

In which I think more about Patrick O'Brian's The Fortune of War: So the wackiness continues with the cricket game where, even I, whose sum total of cricket knowledge is sitting there reading while my mum-in-law watched a match, once, could tell Stephen was playing an entirely different game by an entirely different set of rules. And we learn that, in tandem with Jack's thoughts in an earlier novel that Stephen, despite his brilliance in his fields of chosen endeavor, ought not to be let out alone, that Stephen feels similarly about Jack. I love these guys. Jack nearly chokes himself with laughter over making an extremely obvious witticism, and then feel so strongly about it, he writes about it in a letter to his wife, as well. There is pointless talk about Pamela and Clarissa in Captain Yorke's well-appointed shipboard library, pointless because his library is doomed, doomed I tell you, when the ship catches fire. And Stephen's collection of wildlife specimens (the guy is a one-man Museum of Natural History) is doomed as well, though thankfully he left his tame wombats behind with a friend at the Cape.

And then all of a sudden they are in an open boat, having escaped the fire, and everything is dead serious, and how amazing a writer is this guy?

I've been mulling this over lately -- who are the writers whose work I'm obsessed by? And why? Not meaning to start a meme or anything, but I'd love to see other people's responses.

Some answers, subject to change at the whim of the moment:
Oscar Wilde (came up in a discussion last night and I realized how I had to assert my Big Oscar Fandom even now when it's been ages since I've reread anything)
Anthony Trollope ('cause he's the subject of my current chapter, so I think about his writing every day, even if it's only to make an excuse for why I haven't worked on it today)
Lewis Carroll (teaching the Alice class was like mainlining his work.)
China Mieville (I read everything possible to read by him last year, but now that the Iron Council is just a couple of months away I feel the pull already)
John Crowley (The more I think about his writing the more amazed I am . . . )
Elizabeth Hand (I was unimpressed by the last thing I read by her, an early sf novel called Icarus Descending, but the stories in Bibliomancy left me awestruck, and again, counting the days 'til Mortal Love comes out.

Obviously I've been nattering on here about O'Brian and Homer; being reading some Charles deLint, who I am woefully behind on; and my lifelong hall of fame includes Virginia Woolf, all three Brontes, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, some of George Eliot, perhaps oddly, Raymond Chandler; I will gleefully pounce upon anything new by Jumpa Lhairi, Edwidge Danticat, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman, etc. Was surprised to find myself unmoved by the new Chang-Rae Lee, as I would have put him in the "gleefully pounce" category. Leaving out many many who I will think of later.

Comments

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried to read Lewis Carroll's Bruno & Sylvie?

Man, that is one difficult book to slog through. I was thinking of dropping the text into Word and doing a universal replacement for the baby-talk... you know, replace 'oo with you and suchlike? Maybe it would be readable then. I couldn't find a plot in there, under all that Too-Cute, and finally gave up.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Yup. I read Sylvie and Bruno, though I was powerskimming near the end so as to not hurl huge boulders at Bruno and his lisping diction.

Pity, as there's some way cool stuff hidden amongst the dross. There's a scene that anticipates Red Dwarf's "Backwards" ep, though less, uh, biological. A group of young ladies refill their teacups and then unembroider their handkerchiefs, but it's written really well.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

I have some authors where I'm "Oh, my GOD! New book. MUST HAVE NOW." (George R. R. Martin, if he ever finishes that 4th book; Patricia McKillip; Michael Dibdin; Lindsey Davis; Barry Unsworth; Margaret Atwood) - and looking over that list, a lot of that is because a lot of them are genre authors who write series, so I want to know the rest of the story (I would've loved living in Victorian England apparently).

And then I have other individual books where I keep coming back to them again and again because I love them so much - The Leopard is one; Anna Karenina is another ... And I think the O'Brian books will be those for me too - because they're so well written ...

I dunno if this really answers the question though ;)

I'm not sure if this ans

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty free-form question. :-)

Genre series as successor to the serialized novel; that's a neat idea to play around with.

[batdina.livejournal.com]

I just handed off Perdido Street Station to my sister, who was looking for "something weird and well written" when she was here last week. Of course, I'm now thinking I want to reread it myself, but given the pile by the bed, I'm trying to contain myself.

Lifelong hall of fame? George Eliot, though I haven't reread anything in more than a decade, I still think about her work all the time; Christa Wolf (for whom I learned the small German I have that wasn't Yiddish from childhood) and whose Cassandra is an at least every year reread; John Ashbery; Joseph Hansen; and like you, I'm sure there are at least an even dozen I'm leaving out in my rush to make Shul before Torah reading this morning.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Isn't it interesting how some things stick with you. Dorothea Brooke is one of those characters for me -- the clash between her idealism and what's possible for her in her culture, and the bad choices she makes because of them.

I have no German, but have thought about reading Christa Wolf in translation; I will put her on the list.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Is the new Edwidge Danticat good? I read her very first novel and liked it. That's when I was mainlining anything that was world lit for my advanced world lit kids.

Tell me more new good books, please. I'm sometimes rather behind on what's new.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I liked the new Danticat very much, though I read it much too quickly. I went through a "new fiction" phase more last year and this fall, where I was splurging on hardcovers as soon as I read about them, but I've been on a tighter budget since. So most of these probably aren't new to you:

Monica Ali, Brick Lane (was no doubt out there ages before here)
Jumpa Lhairi, The Namesake (didn't love as much as her short stories, but worth reading)
Umberto Eco, Baudolino (very much up your alley)
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (audacious, doesn't always work, but always interesting)

If this is useful, I will think of more.

Stay away:
Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and The White (neo-Victorian novel by someone who frequents the VICTORIA academic list I used to be on; men ventriloquizing prostitutes = nearly always a disaster, cf Memoirs of a Geisha)
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees (too sweet)

[silme.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked The Secret Life of Bees. I bought it last year when we were in the States. I was thinking of high-school kids at the time; sometimes I still think I'm at Boulder High. It was too sweet, but it had bits of Mockingbird and Huck Finn here and there.

I've read Brick Lane. Monica Ali was the new thing; we're now waiting for the next new thing to come along. I have avoided Middlesex. (I avoid that county, not just the book. I worked near Staines for two years. I know people who live in Slough by choice, and I wonder why. :)

I'd been waiting for the Eco in paperback. That happened a while ago, but I've put off buying it. Maybe I should get it now. I remember being angry because I loved a dress that was on the painting used on the dust jacket -- on the back, I think -- and it's not on the paperback, darn it!

Silly, yes. :)

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

My book group read Secret Life of Bees and it fell flat for most of us (of fairly varied tastes). I did like the first chapter, that was originally the short story, with the bee-infested walls. Hmm, if I thought it was too sweet, maybe I should give it to my mom. :-)

I figured Monica Ali was the next Zadie Smith. Which makes me wonder who Zadie Smith is these days. It's interesting to compare Ali to Jumpa Lhairi, though, since they're writing similar subject matter but one from the UK and one from the US.

Avoid *Middlesex* if you don't like Eugenides, but don't like it because you dislike the county, since it's got nothing to do with. :-) The main character is absolutely fascinating; didn't think the plot quite measured up to the characterization, though.

Maybe you could find the Eco used in hardcover and still get the picture of the dress? Worth a try.

I just picked up Mark Haddon's *Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time*, which has gotten raves, and Karen Joy Fowler's *The Jane Austen Book Club*. Also that finnish book *The Troll*, but once again I think that came out in the UK first.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Haddon just happened to be doing a reading/signing when I was in Oxford last summer, so my copy is autographed. :) I'm so pleased it won the Whitbread!

Zadie Smith? I haven't read The Autograph Man.

I want to read The Jane Austen Book Club. I have this hankering desire to re-read Austen and go to Bath. I'm considering heading to Glastonbury again on Wednesday and then on to Bath.

Right now, I'm awash in YA books for the Parents' Reading Evening on the 8th. Some of them are pretty decent. I'm in the middle of The Gift, the first of a fantasy trilogy by Australian writer Alison Croggan. Next up include Grass for his Pillow by Lian Hearn, the sequel (well, second in a trilogy) to Across the Nightingale Floor, which is another crossover book between children's and adult's departments.

I haven't read Troll, though, yes, it was out here first. Thanks for the reminder! :)

No, avoiding Middlesex didn't really have anything to do with the county. :)

And yes, I could check out various places for a used Eco in hardcover.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

The only person I know who read *The Autograph Man* really loved it; it had gotten dismally unenthused reviews, though.

See, you're all worried about being behind and you know all the contemporary novels I do. And I take pride in being up-to-date.

I spend sad amounts of time in bookstores, since the Strand, Shakespeare & Co., St. Mark's, Alabaster Used Bookshop, and three separate Barnes & Nobles are all in my usual Chelsea to Cooper flight path. And then there's Morningside and Labyrinth and the University bookstore when I'm at school. Oh, and Colosseum if I go to NYPublic to study, and . . .

Going cold turkey for the summer, though. Did a real Strand binge yesterday (the Haddon and the Fowler and a Graham Greene for book group, one of the few Sharpes I didn't have, a Sharon Key Penman, two Elizabeth Hands in hardcover first printing, plus a Jeff Noon and two second-hand O'Brians at Alabaster), so I must stay away except for specific releases I'm waiting for. Though actually I spent almost nothing for what I got. Still . . . must read what I have, first.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I mostly have to deal with chains here. *sigh* But I just found out about a lovely indie book store in Romsey, not too far from work. Its running a competition for acrostic poetry written by students 11-13. The poems have to be about a novel or a character from a novel. Since the Year 8s were studying poetry, I gave the information (I seem to be in charge of disseminating information about writing competitions) to all the Year 8 teachers. I have four sets of poems,including my own students, to drop off at the store after half term. I've heard it's very nice.

And we're going into London tomorrow; I want to drop by Foyles and Murder One. Also, I want to go back to Glastonbury this week -- and then maybe head up to Bath. Want/desire anything?

Sometimes I feel I'm behind with adult books because I'm busy with YAS now.

[mahari95.livejournal.com]

What about the most talented Ms. Gaskell's 'North and South'? :)

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Liked it enough to pick up *Sons and Daughters*, *Mary Barton* and the very-different *Cranford*.
She's not quite an obsession, though I find her very interesting.