Favourites authors (old)
Oct. 16th, 2002 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
triskellianI have objections to favourite anythings. In most categories, there are simply so many examples that I love, in so many different ways, that it's impossible to pick one. The criteria can change, and some of them might even be contradictory. So I often refuse to give favourites, or give an arbitrary number of favourite somethings, in no particular order, and subject to additions and deletions according to my mood. Which is what's in
If I have an absolute favourite author, I think it might be Margaret Atwood, although I have to acknowledge that I'm less impressed by some of her earlier work, so if 'every book she's written is wonderful' is one of the criteria I'm using today, she wouldn't qualify. But if I were to produce a list of an arbitrary number of favourite books, she would have written more of them than any other author, and they'd all be near the top of the list. If today's method of choosing favourites allows ordering, that is.
Those books would be The Robber Bride (possibly my favourite book, subject to the usual caveats), The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, and The Blind Assassin (which might also be my favourite book, depending on today's criteria).
I'm sqeamish, so I find his short stories difficult. But he may be second to Margaret Atwood in terms of the number of his books which rank among my favourites. Enduring Love is scary and touching and beautiful, and, ultimately, inspiring of hope against all the odds. I cried and cried. Atonement, for which he also didn't win the Booker prize (Amsterdam, which did win, isn't as good as either of those, in my opinion) was also wonderful, and A Child in Time, the first McEwan I read (recommended to me by my A level English teacher) is heartbreaking.
I love magical realism. I love the feeling that, after you've closed the door of the play-room, all the toys get up and move around, which is how I define magical realism, and how I describe what happens in Kate Atkinson's books. In Behind the Scenes at the Museum, nothing magical happens, but there's a feeling that if you could just turn your head quickly enough...
In Human Croquet, you can turn your head quickly enough to catch glimpses, and it's enchanting.
The Night Listener, his most recent book, is better than the best of Tales of the City, which, at its best encompassed most of the things I look for in fiction. Maybe the Moon, his other non-TotC book was also great, although I can't forgive the ending, appropriate as it is.
However, since I wrote the above paragraph, a friend has recommended Edmund White to me, as occuping the same territory as Armistead Maupin, but chronicling it with more elegance.
If today's favourite author criteria include 'every book she's written is wonderful', PD James is well up there. Although she'll have competition from Nick Hornby, below. Adam Dalgleish, her poet-detective, is my favourite detective (well, he's on the list which also includes Poirot, Peter Wimsey and Kate Brannigan), and she's not just a great crime writer, she's a great writer. The Children of Men is an unexpectedly brilliant dystopia from someone who has written no other fiction than crime.
I read Fever Pitch reluctantly, expecting to put in down in boredom at any moment, but it doesn't really matter that the obsession is football, as proved in High Fidelity with music. Coming from two tales of laddish obsessions, he's turning to relationships and social interaction and succeeding there too, with About a Boy and How to be Good, writing so convincingly as a woman that I'd forget for long stretches that this was a Nick Hornby book.
High Fidelity also has the honour of being one of the very rare books where the film does the book justice, and where enjoyment of either doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the other.
My favourite authors
Margaret Atwood
If I have an absolute favourite author, I think it might be Margaret Atwood, although I have to acknowledge that I'm less impressed by some of her earlier work, so if 'every book she's written is wonderful' is one of the criteria I'm using today, she wouldn't qualify. But if I were to produce a list of an arbitrary number of favourite books, she would have written more of them than any other author, and they'd all be near the top of the list. If today's method of choosing favourites allows ordering, that is.
Those books would be The Robber Bride (possibly my favourite book, subject to the usual caveats), The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, and The Blind Assassin (which might also be my favourite book, depending on today's criteria).
Ian McEwan
I'm sqeamish, so I find his short stories difficult. But he may be second to Margaret Atwood in terms of the number of his books which rank among my favourites. Enduring Love is scary and touching and beautiful, and, ultimately, inspiring of hope against all the odds. I cried and cried. Atonement, for which he also didn't win the Booker prize (Amsterdam, which did win, isn't as good as either of those, in my opinion) was also wonderful, and A Child in Time, the first McEwan I read (recommended to me by my A level English teacher) is heartbreaking.
Kate Atkinson
I love magical realism. I love the feeling that, after you've closed the door of the play-room, all the toys get up and move around, which is how I define magical realism, and how I describe what happens in Kate Atkinson's books. In Behind the Scenes at the Museum, nothing magical happens, but there's a feeling that if you could just turn your head quickly enough...
In Human Croquet, you can turn your head quickly enough to catch glimpses, and it's enchanting.
Armistead Maupin
The Night Listener, his most recent book, is better than the best of Tales of the City, which, at its best encompassed most of the things I look for in fiction. Maybe the Moon, his other non-TotC book was also great, although I can't forgive the ending, appropriate as it is.
However, since I wrote the above paragraph, a friend has recommended Edmund White to me, as occuping the same territory as Armistead Maupin, but chronicling it with more elegance.
PD James
If today's favourite author criteria include 'every book she's written is wonderful', PD James is well up there. Although she'll have competition from Nick Hornby, below. Adam Dalgleish, her poet-detective, is my favourite detective (well, he's on the list which also includes Poirot, Peter Wimsey and Kate Brannigan), and she's not just a great crime writer, she's a great writer. The Children of Men is an unexpectedly brilliant dystopia from someone who has written no other fiction than crime.
Nick Hornby
I read Fever Pitch reluctantly, expecting to put in down in boredom at any moment, but it doesn't really matter that the obsession is football, as proved in High Fidelity with music. Coming from two tales of laddish obsessions, he's turning to relationships and social interaction and succeeding there too, with About a Boy and How to be Good, writing so convincingly as a woman that I'd forget for long stretches that this was a Nick Hornby book.
High Fidelity also has the honour of being one of the very rare books where the film does the book justice, and where enjoyment of either doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the other.
