Bethany tagged me for this one…
1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?
If I absolutely had to pick one, I guess I would have to say Robertson Davies. His books fill me up completely. I posted this quote from Zadie Smith once before, but it bears repeating, since it’s the answer to the second part of this question. Just substitute Davies for Forster.
Ideal reading is aspirational, like dating. It happens that I am E. M. Forster’s ideal reader, but I would much prefer to be Gustave Flaubert’s or William Gaddis’s or Franz Kafka’s or Borges’s. But early on Forster and I saw how we suited, how we fit, how we felt comfortable (too much so?) in each other’s company. I am Forster’s ideal reader because, I think, nothing that he left on the page escapes me. Rightly or wrongly, I feel I get all his jokes and appreciate his nuances, that I am as hurt by his flaws as I am by my own, and as pleased when he is great as I would be if I did something great…. You might know three or four writers like this in your life, and likely as not, you will meet them when you are very young. Understand: They are not the writers you most respect, most envy, or even most enjoy. They are the ones you know.
2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?
Well, I suppose my very first favorite author, truly the very first, must have been Richard Scarry. I used to pore over Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever even before I could read. I called it Big Book. I still love Big Book.
My first favorite author whose name I actually knew was Carolyn Keene. And the first author that really blew my mind, that taught me to appreciate prose, was Joan Aiken. For that alone I would still consider her among my favorites. And I’m pleased to report that I have gone back to some of her books as an adult and they held up very well.
3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?
I have plenty of favorite books, but it’s been a while since I added an author to my list of faves. For me, a “favorite” author is one that, after reading one book, I feel compelled to read and reread his or her entire œuvre and obsess about it to the exclusion of all else. It takes me a while to get over one author before I latch onto another. Call it serial monogamy. I’ve been living in Patrick O’Brian Land for several years and I’m still happily entrenched. Why? Because his writing is often hilarious and always exquisite, his characters are fascinatingly complex, the world he creates is so romantic, and most of all, because Jack and Stephen play duets. If you’ve never had the opportunity to play duets with someone I highly recommend it. There is almost nothing on earth that compares to the pleasure of creating music with another person. Truly.
4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?
You mean besides Patrick O’Brian?
5. Tagged:
Okay, how about…
- Yati, who also listed RPGs as her favorite form of storytelling
- Chartroose, who I know will come up with some hilarious and unexpected answers
- Michelle, because she tagged me recently and turnabout is fair play
- Inkling, with the hope that she’ll have more time for blogging after the tides of time have carried her to summer’s sandy shore, or something like that
- Aunt Sara, because I wish she would get a blog
Have fun!
6 Comments
Oy. Thanks for the encouragement and the challenge. I was required to start a blog for a grad school class, and I was taken aback by some of the non-classmates who told me they had read it. I suppose it’s different when you are posting things you want to write about, instead of critiquing chapters of a bad course text. On the other hand, I was uncomfortable when a colleague recently discovered a rant about teaching that I posted on a political blog.
As for first favorite author, I’m trying to remember whether I loved the Boxcar Children books by Gertrude Chandler Warner, because the librarian steered us toward those books and everyone was reading them, or because I really loved the story. I do remember caring about Benny’s pink cup.
Love Davies. Good choice. Also Dickens, for some of the same reasons. Austen forever.
For a lot of my current hard copy reading (as opposed to audiobooks, which I know you disdain), I try to see the book through the eyes of my students. So recent favorites would include Rick Riordan and Vivian Vande Velde. But my affection for them is somewhat vicarious.
I reread every book by Davies each year-they are the groundwork of my being, in many ways. A more interesting man never walked in shoe leather.
I have such a crush on Robertson Davies! I could sit in a bubble bath with The Deptford Trilogy all day.
Sara, you could blog anonymously. Hey, maybe you already do… Btw, I don’t “disdain” audio books. They just don’t work very well for me.
Suzanne, I agree!
Ella, ha ha, I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way…
Thanks for the tag! I’ll work on it soon.
This only proves that I should bump Patrick O’Brian up higher on my to read list!
Strange, I’ve never heard of Robertson Davies before. I’ll have to check whether the library has any of his books.
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