I've decided to prepare a third guest list. Since I was a very young child, I've loved to read. So, I'm having a dinner party of writers who have written one or more books that I love for one reason or another. These are not necessarily the writers who I think are the greatest. Just my favs.
Albert Payson Terhune. When I was a child, I read his books about collies over and over again. Lad, a Dog, Treve, Lady. I loved the dogs and the gentle world he created for them.
Betty Smith. When I was a teenager, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a very personal and special book to me. Ok, so I was from da Bronx. But Noo Yawk is Noo Yawk. And this book touched me.
Fyodor Dostoevsky. I'm awed at his emotional power. I actually studied Russian for a while in the hope of some day being able to read his work in its original language. I stopped. I didn't do well with a different alphabet. I read The Brothers Karamozov in one sitting. I couldn't stop. Night and day. On and on. I was completely caught up in it. A bit of lunacy on my part. But it was a hell of an experience.
William Shakespeare. I've read all his plays and poems. Yes, all. All are not great. But most are, and the greatness of language and ideas overwhelm me.
Harper Lee. She wrote only one book, but what a book. To Kill a Mockingbird. I would like her to attend this party not just because I loved her book, but because I want the skinny on the rumors that Truman Capote wrote the book. I don't buy it. Let's get it from the horse's mouth.
Herman Melville. I'm not an ardent fan of Moby Dick. I want Herman at this party because he wrote Bartleby the Scrivener. I reread it recently, and it was as good the second time as it was the first.
William Faulkner. I'm saving a number of his books for my retirement. His writing requires more of a contribution from the reader than I am prepared to make now. However, of his works that I've already read, I can say that they are powerful and emotional, and his skill as a writer leaves me with my tongue hanging out.
Ngaio Marsh. My favorite mystery writer. She had a real talent for plot and character, and I'm sure that Dame Ngaio would enliven any dinner party.
Mark Twain. Although I've liked his novels, I've loved his cynical, skeptical, sardonic essays. And let's face it. His wit would be a plus to any party.
Hmmmm. I'm going to ponder a bit more about guest No. 10. I'll be back.
Roberta -- you can't omit James Joyce from a guest list like that!
Merry Andrew is right, somebody needs to bring the IRISH whiskey...
Did someone say Whiskey ???
Hmm...must compile a literary piss-up list:
Thomas Hardy
Malcolm Lowry
James Joyce
Ernest Hemmingway
Charles Bukowski
Jack Kerouac
William Faulkner
Dorothy Parker
Henry Miller
Hunter S. Thompson
Joyce could be the tenth guest. But I'm pissed at him for Finnegan's Wake. And this list is about favorites, not bests. I'm still cogitating and looking through my bookshelves. I may surprise you and go in an entirely different direction.
I'm glad to see that Cav invited Charles Bukowski to the party. Give that guy a bottle and he'll keep the party jumping all night.
So will Hunter S. Thompson.
Roberta--
I feel you, re: Faulkner. I was sort of voracious with the classics, about twenty years ago--and when I got to Faulkner, I was stuck. You don't breeze through Faulkner. He should be set aside for a relaxed, patient perusal.
I'm glad you brought it up. I may dust him off tonight.
At that time (of all the hurried reading), I was impatient of his forty page treatment of what the leaf looked like. Now, I am much more appreciative of his purposeful, detailed sidebars.
A brilliant man.
cav's mention of Hardy piqued me, as well. Hardy had glimmers of Faulkner in description--but Hardy would actually have SOME ACTION to keep us entertained, amid his descriptive or side-bar riffs. (Back then, I had to have the equivalent of the Classic 'car chase' to keep me in the narrative.) {Please stop talking about the field of grass...WHERE IS SHE GOING???}
Sofia, I've never cared much about action in what I read. I am drawn to books with lots of emotion and spectacular writing. Great writing draws me in like a bobby pin to a magnet. I'm stuck--unable to free myself.
I just reread Light in August. I had to stop and admire a turn of phrase, a particular way of describing something. I was awed. The images in that book are so powerful that they are embedded in my mind's eye.
Sofia, the 'chuck, chuck, chuck' of the wagon in 'As I Lay Dying' isn't enough for you? I think Faulkner has internal monologue nailed...and I love the concept of that internal monologue as the truth that cannot be spoken, but can be thought, as in the case of Darl in the above referenced novel. Great stuff...American Gothic at it's finest.
Love youse guys. There is so much stuff going on here. Roberta, your list is excellent. Yes, Harper Lee. The problem may be that we have forced ourselves into an artifical construct.
Does anyone know the Irish writer Jamie O'Neill? This is a lad who is James Joyce writ I-can-understand-you-maybe. He does not give anything away to me -- which might have helped a lot, a lot -- but he is a genius. In reading him, you must be forgiving of alternative life styles, but that is so last year, last century. He will be at my table. If he will attend.
Roberta, Betty Smith...yes! Ngaio Marsh. And, how could I have left him out, Dostoyevsky. Your list is winning. I might add one person. My table would include Dlowan. (It would also include the elusive Pyewackett, but that is another tale.) Dlowan, in full flight, is a bird to follow and a person I must know some day.
I am keen on Nuala O'Faolain and Alice Munro. Maybe I need to move Mary Taylor Simeti over, but no, no, in many ways she was some form of me, when years ago she moved to Sicily to be involved in a social project (with, I think, Danilo Dolci), marrying a local fellow and staying. She covers, in the first book I read of hers - something about Persesphone - the seasons and all the seasons mean there... How can I remove her, the observer of the particular place.
Food, really, I will have to make pizza. I wonder what Marcus Aurelius will say? I will surprise him with some Napa and Sonoma wine though.
Hmm, Lucrezia will probably not like the pizzas. Perhaps the whole pig...
Ooh, I am ashamed of myself, that was a cheap shot.
My second list.
1) Anne Tyler
2) Larry David
3) Lewis Grizzard
4) JFK, Jr.
5) Prince William
6) Tony Blair
7) Margaret Sanger
8) William Wallace
9) Molly Brown
10) Joan of Arc
Sofia wrote:My second list.
1) Anne Tyler
2) Larry David
3) Lewis Grizzard
4) JFK, Jr.
5) Prince William
6) Tony Blair
7) Margaret Sanger
8) William Wallace
9) Molly Brown
10) Joan of Arc
Hey, where the BLACK folks at, at this shindig? (sorry- couldn't resist!
)
Snood, there are only four wimmen, too, and we make up half of the pop.
I thought Joan of Arc was Black...well, she was after the execution
