(no subject)
Tell me this is not the best opening line to a book EVER:
May I speak candidly, fleshling, one rational creature to another, myself a book and you a reader?
That's the first line in The Last Witchfinder, the latest novel by James Morrow. If you've never read Morrow, you're in for a treat. He writes books of such surpassing intelligence, incisive wit, stinging social commentary, hilarious absurdity, deep compassion, jaw-dropping beauty, and encyclopaedic religious knowledge that I am constantly amazed by his work. Each time I read one of his books, I think he can't get any better. But he does. He always does.
In the first chapter, Morrow introduces the concept that some books are written by other books, and their human authors are simply the conduits, much like the way Vodoun priests are "ridden" by their loas. Here a bit about that:
The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice it to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic. A bit of literary history may clarify matters. Unlike Charles Dickens' other novels, Little Dorrit was in fact written by The Faerie Queene. It is fortunate that Jane Austen's reputation does not rest on Northanger Abbey, for the author of that admirable satire was Paradise Regained in a frivolous mood. The twentieth century offers abundant examples, from The Pilgrim's Progress cranking out Atlas Shrugged, to Les Miserables composing The Jungle, to The Memoirs of Casanova penning Portnoy's Complaint.
Occasionally, of course, the alchemy proves so potent that the appropriated author never produces a single original word. Some compelling facts have accrued to this phenomenon. Every desert romance novel bearing the name E.M. Hull was actually written by Madame Bovary on a lark. Mein Kampf can claim credit for most of the Hallmark greeting cards printed between 1958 and 1967; Richard Nixon's entire oeuvre traces to a collective effort by the science-fiction slush pile at Ace Books. Now, as you might imagine, upon finding a large readership through one particular work, the average book aspires to repeat its success. Once The Wasteland and Other Poems generated its first Republican Party platform, it couldn't resist creating all the others. After Waiting for Godot acquired a taste for writing Windows software documentation, there was no stopping it...
-- James Morrow, The Last Witchfinder
How can anyone possibly not love a mind capable of things like that?
But don't let the eyebrow-lifting wit fool you. Morrow is capable of prose of such depth, heartache and compassion that he brings me to tears regularly. He has an especial talent for endings. The final paragraphs of This Is the Way the World Ends put me in a sobbing fit, as did the ending of Blameless in Abaddon. His books always end on the perfect note, hitting you under the belt with just the right sting. I don't know how he does that, and I wish I could learn the trick!
The only other writers who have ever had such a deep and abiding effect on me have been Harlan Ellison and Professor Tolkien. Morrow's prose, his stories, his characters, and most of all, what he says about the world and humanity through them, are really incomparable with anyone else. He is utterly briliant, and I urge you to go get one of his books and enjoy a supremely satisfying experience. Any of them are great, but particularly relevant these days is City of Truth, Only Begotten Daughter, This Is the Way the World Ends, and the God's Death trilogy: Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abbadon, and The Eternal Footman. Believe me, you will not regret the time spent in this man's incredible universe.
May I speak candidly, fleshling, one rational creature to another, myself a book and you a reader?
That's the first line in The Last Witchfinder, the latest novel by James Morrow. If you've never read Morrow, you're in for a treat. He writes books of such surpassing intelligence, incisive wit, stinging social commentary, hilarious absurdity, deep compassion, jaw-dropping beauty, and encyclopaedic religious knowledge that I am constantly amazed by his work. Each time I read one of his books, I think he can't get any better. But he does. He always does.
In the first chapter, Morrow introduces the concept that some books are written by other books, and their human authors are simply the conduits, much like the way Vodoun priests are "ridden" by their loas. Here a bit about that:
The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice it to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic. A bit of literary history may clarify matters. Unlike Charles Dickens' other novels, Little Dorrit was in fact written by The Faerie Queene. It is fortunate that Jane Austen's reputation does not rest on Northanger Abbey, for the author of that admirable satire was Paradise Regained in a frivolous mood. The twentieth century offers abundant examples, from The Pilgrim's Progress cranking out Atlas Shrugged, to Les Miserables composing The Jungle, to The Memoirs of Casanova penning Portnoy's Complaint.
Occasionally, of course, the alchemy proves so potent that the appropriated author never produces a single original word. Some compelling facts have accrued to this phenomenon. Every desert romance novel bearing the name E.M. Hull was actually written by Madame Bovary on a lark. Mein Kampf can claim credit for most of the Hallmark greeting cards printed between 1958 and 1967; Richard Nixon's entire oeuvre traces to a collective effort by the science-fiction slush pile at Ace Books. Now, as you might imagine, upon finding a large readership through one particular work, the average book aspires to repeat its success. Once The Wasteland and Other Poems generated its first Republican Party platform, it couldn't resist creating all the others. After Waiting for Godot acquired a taste for writing Windows software documentation, there was no stopping it...
-- James Morrow, The Last Witchfinder
How can anyone possibly not love a mind capable of things like that?
But don't let the eyebrow-lifting wit fool you. Morrow is capable of prose of such depth, heartache and compassion that he brings me to tears regularly. He has an especial talent for endings. The final paragraphs of This Is the Way the World Ends put me in a sobbing fit, as did the ending of Blameless in Abaddon. His books always end on the perfect note, hitting you under the belt with just the right sting. I don't know how he does that, and I wish I could learn the trick!
The only other writers who have ever had such a deep and abiding effect on me have been Harlan Ellison and Professor Tolkien. Morrow's prose, his stories, his characters, and most of all, what he says about the world and humanity through them, are really incomparable with anyone else. He is utterly briliant, and I urge you to go get one of his books and enjoy a supremely satisfying experience. Any of them are great, but particularly relevant these days is City of Truth, Only Begotten Daughter, This Is the Way the World Ends, and the God's Death trilogy: Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abbadon, and The Eternal Footman. Believe me, you will not regret the time spent in this man's incredible universe.