Going to bed hungry.
Writers, in a way, are like cooks.
The best ones have their own signature style, and these wordchefs leave their unmistakable signature on the way they alchemise the language, the way they take basic ingredients and turn them into magical repasts we lovingly gorge on.
Jonathan Swift, for example, with his brutal brilliance, makes one helluva bloody steak, meaty and guaranteed to fill you right up. Joe Heller simplistically makes it work really well, a serving of perfectly mashed potatoes. Julian Barnes attacks with delicate force, apt word selections blended precisely to make his swordfish a la siciliana. Neil Gaiman -- like good ol' Jorge Luis before him -- meshes a bit of literally everything together in a marvellously judicious mix, coming up with a thick broth heady enough to warrant Getafix comparisons. Anthony Burgess laces his bizarrely exotic fricassée -- complete with diced dodo and pterodactyl meat -- with a mugful of country hooch that takes over the skull. Nobody quite knows just how Nabakov spices and soaks his meat, but the thing about his phenomenal leg of lamb is that every bite is an absolute sensation.
Poets are the great dessert chefs, but that's fodder for another post -- if you're interested.
And then there's another wordsmith who crafts, with excellent and irreverent genius, the finest biryani in the land. His words coat the meat thickly enough to bring it to mouthmelty texture, and he tosses in unconventional ad hoc ingredients with mad scientist flair, letting words and grammar flow into a zany, rulefree raita. Sprinkled with a dash of saffron that seems to act as both aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic, it's the stuff of emperors and egomaniacs, despots and dreamers.
And tonight I feast on just that. Ah, bliss.
The best ones have their own signature style, and these wordchefs leave their unmistakable signature on the way they alchemise the language, the way they take basic ingredients and turn them into magical repasts we lovingly gorge on.
Jonathan Swift, for example, with his brutal brilliance, makes one helluva bloody steak, meaty and guaranteed to fill you right up. Joe Heller simplistically makes it work really well, a serving of perfectly mashed potatoes. Julian Barnes attacks with delicate force, apt word selections blended precisely to make his swordfish a la siciliana. Neil Gaiman -- like good ol' Jorge Luis before him -- meshes a bit of literally everything together in a marvellously judicious mix, coming up with a thick broth heady enough to warrant Getafix comparisons. Anthony Burgess laces his bizarrely exotic fricassée -- complete with diced dodo and pterodactyl meat -- with a mugful of country hooch that takes over the skull. Nobody quite knows just how Nabakov spices and soaks his meat, but the thing about his phenomenal leg of lamb is that every bite is an absolute sensation.
Poets are the great dessert chefs, but that's fodder for another post -- if you're interested.
And then there's another wordsmith who crafts, with excellent and irreverent genius, the finest biryani in the land. His words coat the meat thickly enough to bring it to mouthmelty texture, and he tosses in unconventional ad hoc ingredients with mad scientist flair, letting words and grammar flow into a zany, rulefree raita. Sprinkled with a dash of saffron that seems to act as both aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic, it's the stuff of emperors and egomaniacs, despots and dreamers.
And tonight I feast on just that. Ah, bliss.