I’m trying to write the books I want to read but can never find. Part of that search is surveying what’s out there, what’s considered to be the best stuff being written in English. In a way it’s a search for the ultimate book and for how far an author can go towards one. I am naturally disappointed. Not that I think there can be a perfect book out there, but I like to see who’s pushing limits and coming up with what hasn’t been done before or at least approaching the enterprise from a different angle. It seems I can never find authors getting to the nitty-gritty, hitting all the nails on the head to fashion a holistic or esemplastic statement on human experience. It seems there are many authors approaching this elephant from one side, or rather orbiting around it like a black hole but never hitting home. Maybe this is what any artist feels. Maybe it can’t be done.
I’ve found myself logically seeking out those authors critics say are the best living writers as well as those winning prizes like The Booker Prize, The Nobel Prize, and The Pulitzer Prize. Surprisingly they don’t always coincide. I limit myself to writers writing in English, not wanting to judge through the filter of a translation. (I don’t even like reading Nabokov’s pre-English works even if he translated them.)
My thoughts on these authors are based on the books I’ve read of them. I’m still reading more of them right now. They’re not necessarily who are considered the best, but the one’s I’m focused on now out of that larger pool. I’ve also put them in order according to how much I liked each book and would recommend them. That’s the kind of information I’m always looking for but find difficult to get. If I’m interested in an author and somebody tells me what they think is their best then I’ll definitely read that book and later consider if I agree. It’s nice to approach something or somebody new with some kind of orientation even if you end up thinking the opposite.
In truth these notes are really my 21st century index cards I’ve written to myself to summarize and organize my thoughts on these authors and their books. I post them in a why-the-heck-not spirit since I know to post things on my blog is to open a window in a metropolis and yell.
The authors in my current repertoire and up for evaluation are, in alphabetical order:
Nicholson Baker
J.M. Coetzee
Glen Duncan
Cormac McCarthy
Ian McEwan
6 comments:
I thought that "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy was an exercise in depression and half way through I felt what is the use of living so I stopped reading it. I enjoyed Ian McEwan's "Saturday", "Black Dogs", and "Enduring Love", (also liked the movie "Enduring Love"). What is your opinion of David Foster Wallace and his stretching of the novel format? I read "Infinite Jest" twice and plan on reading it again, once my list get reduced to essential reads. I thought it wonderful
ly inventive and I liked how essentially parts of the narrative was in footnotes. What a mind and what a loss. I've also read most of Lee Child, just so you know I like trash escapism too. His books are great for a snowy day on the couch.
Essentially should have been essential.
Thanks for visiting and commenting Hank Neeb. The Road is quite the bitter pill to swallow. It no doubt makes you question humanity, reflect on your life, appreciate what you have, and consider what the point of it all is. McCarthy stripped us of everything we live for to see what might be left. But I think all these things are good things for a book to do! The psychological impact it has is not a matter of literary criticism but one of personal psychological management. Art only makes you confront issues and good art antagonizes at deeper levels.
I'll soon have more to say on both McCarthy and McEwan. As for Wallace and Infinite Jest. I still have I.J. on my shelf with a yellowing bookmark indicating I made it to page to around page 100, i.e. a tenth of that tome’s 1000+ pages. Although I am still interested I simply do not have the time to spend on a monolith like that. Maybe if I win the lottery, quit my day job, and hire a nanny to watch the kids I’ll read it. Does he have any comparable works of a more palatable size you’d recommend? Maybe something with “Finite” in the title? It’s too bad about Wallace: he must have read The Road.
And as for escapism trash. I allow myself an indulgence in September when my free summer is over and I must go back to work. This year I read World War Z which was wonderfully creative and enjoyable. I have lately been eyeing its companion work The Zombie Survival Guide, but need a compensatory excuse to put down the Serious Literary Nobelists for Mel Brook’s son.
Post a Comment