On Writing That Is Not My Own

I think I'm going to talk about works of literature that I enjoy, this time. Because I can.

Off the top of my head, there are a few poems that really stand out. The first one is a little one called "The Yes and the No, Redondo," by Greg Pape. It's about this kid jumping off of a fishing pier so that his girlfriend will have sex with him, but there's a bit more to it than that, and I think that it's in the description. It's been a long time since I've read it though. I can't seem to find it anywhere. If one of you silent readers out there manages to find it, become vocal and let me know. You'll win the prize of my eternal gratitude.

"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Elliot is also a good poem. I've turned to it for inspiration time and again, even directly basing one story off of it. I like not only the description of it, but how it lets the reader examine the downsides of modern life. It was one of the first poems that I actually understood what it was about in that respect. That's a big thing for me, since usually I have to be told what a poem is about.

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is another poem that really sticks out in my mind. I came across it due to another work of literature which I will be naming later. Though at first I liked it due to its placement in the other work of literature, I have come to appreciate it on its own terms. I think being able to memorize the entire thing would be pro, so I have gotten an audio version to try to do just that.

"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is another poem I would love to be able to memorize and recite. It would be a tad easier than "Childe Roland," that's for sure. But I also like it on its own merits. For one, I can follow the story in it well. And it's a very well presented story as well. The Great White North that Robert Service loved to write about is a part of the world that also intrigues me, and he has put a very interesting story in it. With bits of the psychological and the supernatural, this poem is definitely one of my all-time favorites.

"Jabberwocky" I do have memorized. I know that it's a bit of nonsense verse and as such is often regarded as children's literature. But, if you recite it right, this poem sounds downright epic. I've got a version of it in song form by someone called Donovan. They have a simple acoustic guitar and drum accompaniment, with a bit of synth in one certain point, and it makes that poem sound really awesome.

And, I'll also say that I like one fragment of a poem. The first stanza of "The World," by Henry Vaughan is very awesome.

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light
all calm as it was bright
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
Driven by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled

Now, on to prose fiction. I'll come right out and say that my all time favorite book in the world is "A Ring of Endless Light" by Madeleine L'Engle. Anything by her is good, super good, but that one book just takes the cake across the board.

And, before I go on and talk about "A Ring of Endless Light," let me say that the next blog entry I do will be devoted to Madeleine L'Engle, because my writing demands to show how she has affected it.

Anyways, what makes "A Ring of Endless Light" so good is a combination of many factors. It is a teenage romance, where the main character, Vicky Austin, must choose between three boys that want her heart. Figuratively, not literally. But, it is also a speculative fiction novel, because she has a gift of being able to "empathize" with dolphins, able to share feelings on such a strong level it is deeper than most fictional forms of telepathy. And, it also deals with the subject of death, since Vicky's grandfather is dying of cancer. So, in a sense, it is also a spiritual novel, forcing the main character and others in the story to come to grasp with the concept of something beyond. It is incredibly touching. There's a movie version of it, but that sucks, as it's only a made for Disney Channel adaptation, nothing even close to the original novel. Go out and read "A Ring of Endless Light." You won't regret it.

Anything by Stephen King I tend to like, not only because I feel that he is a very good storyteller, but because he ties his stories together in little ways. He does this by feeling free to put in tidbits in one book that are the same as the tidbits in another. No where is this more prevalent than in his works "The Stand" and the entire Dark Tower series. "The Stand" starts off as a sci-fi novel about a superflu that wipes out most of the Earth's population, but turns into a fantasy novel as the survivors become embroiled in a battle of good and evil. Though it is an extremely long novel, I feel that it is well worth however long it takes to read it.

The Dark Tower series is the work of literature that lead me to the Browning poem I mentioned earlier. It tells the story of Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, a kind of cross between a romantic knight and a cowboy. He is searching for the Dark Tower, the linchpin in all reality, the thing that holds all the alternate universes together. This series is where the cross-over stuff really shows up, especially in the last three books. King even goes to the trouble of writing himself into the story, which is done fairly well. The author is viewed as not a god, able to create with the stroke of a pen, but merely one who hears the voice of God speak, and must write what he hears. And he doesn't just imply this for himself, but for all writers. So, that kind of endears me to it quite a bit. I could go on and on about why I love the Dark Tower series. It's one of the few "modern fantasy" series I have completely finished.

I like Louis L'Amour stories as well. They're the only westerns I will read, simply because they portray real people in a harsh environment who aren't total monsters. As a counterpoint, "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, while a good work, makes you think of the West as a place full of completely awful people. In Louis L'Amour's books, the people are still very real with very real flaws, but you aren't treated to a shockfest of horrifying acts in order to bring that across. And, the man does his homework. He was an itinerant worker during the Depression, and would read about a hundred or so books with about a thousand pages each over things that would bore most people every year. That alone is enough reason for me to respect him. If you ever get the opportunity, at least check out his autobiography, "Education of a Wandering Man."

Neil Gaiman, of course, is also splendid. The man is able to take the wonderfully fanciful and add just that little bit of "wrongness" to make it so sinister and enjoyable. I own both "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Fragile Things," his short story collections, as well as "American Gods," one of his novels. I have to give my main shout-out, though, to his comic series, The Sandman. This is the comic book for English Majors. Seventy or so issues filled with awesome stories in their own right and shout-outs to great works of literature. You grow to get attached to everyone in this, even most of the villains. This is mostly because there are only a handful of explicitly evil characters. Most of the guys who do bad things, no matter how horrible they might be, are simply misguided. It's got a lot of depth to it, and I recommend it to just about anyone.

That's about it, really. There are other works by other authors, to be sure. But these ones that I have mentioned are the ones that really stand out to me.