In the acquaintance of some old friends.
Things I have found from re-reading some of my literacy heroes...
* John Fowles is very meticulous. Everything means something to him, even the history of the place in which his novels are set, ring out with significance. It's almost as if the country he chooses came into existence purely for him to put it in a novel, and analyse, like he appears to analyse his characters like he's not created them at all, but he's watching real people. He's somewhat god-like, in this respect, in the fact that he's omnipresent throughout. He is both judgemental, yet unbiased. How is this possible?!
* Oscar Wilde considers all art to be quite useless: "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." He is mostly always right (to me). Daniel Handler kind of writes like him, a little. He invents the most brilliant names for his characters (Sibyl Vane, Dorian Gray) and is terribly witty and fabulously dark. He incorporates many important things into his writing, making his fiction important, too. He is not shallow or trivial, but significant. I understand why my friend wants to name her son after him, after simply re-reading the Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
* Philip Larkin, in his earlier works and his younger years of life, was heartbroken, thoughtful, encapsulated by all he could experience. Like the previous two, everything matters to him. Everything. He provokes ordinary things to become immense. They have a spot-light, even things like the sun rising, a train journey, an ambulance, sex, defaced posters, windows, youth, failure. So recurring, 'normal' and so-so. But they aren't to him. Life is life, and life is everything.
* Richard P. Feynman was beloved by so many people. He was a phenomenal human being, physicist, lecturer, friend, colleague and teacher. He helps me look beyond the normal dimensions of life. He's helped so many people. He had a true passion. He passes on that passion. He was very zealous and passionate. I aspire to be like him. So many people do. He had created some brilliant analogies which I thank him for.
* Emily Bronte was extremily intelligent and a profound storyteller. She connects events that occurred in chapter one to how the story concludes, in the end. I find it sad she only got to write one novel in the short time that she lived. However, it's a remarkable achievement. She did not only create names, places, relationships, follies, sham-marriages, villians, illnesses and enemies - she brought them to life.
* Dodie Smith writes adventures with all the vivacity, laughter, terror, embarrassment, awe that a young girl should, rendering the diaries of Cassandra Mortmain to be believable and heart-warming. I read Smith before I fall asleep. I always feel like I'm in the adventure, too.
* S. Morgenstern is the wizard of fantasy. Not only do I believe thouroughly in Morgenstern's fiction, I have faith in it. I believe in the non-existent places Florin and Guilder even though they are merely the names of coins from foreign countries. The journey William Goldman (the abridger) went on and his devotion to the book - I can never match; (Morgenstern's book, The Princess Bride saved his life twice). It's fantastical, emotive, raw (in the brutally realistic sense), hilarious, epic, fiery, heroic, timeless and, by all means, the classic fairytale.
* Edgar Allen Poe's writing freaks me out. Yet I love how he uses colour, objects, ghosts, people, faces, crowds, isolation, desolation, old houses, haunted apartments, paintings to convey horror in so many different ways. He was subtle, yet his writing shrieks out. His writing is like pinpricks on my skin. I almost can't believe how much I love it when his poetry rhymes.
* Daniel Handler is hilarious and makes me cry. He simultaneously breaks my heart and splits my sides. I returned to Adverbs this evening and it always makes me feel the same. It's strange because love isn't static, or always consistant. But I guess it'll never go away if you hang onto it. Handler as taught me a lot about love, because I'm not sure what it means to me, yet.
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Thank you, my heroes.