December meme, day thirteen

[fufaraw]

gorkonelka asks, I would love to know what books you read and what inspires you.




I've always read fiction. It's been my escape and my inspiration, my consolation, and my refuge, all my life. I've gone through stages of genres, from gothic romance to historical romance--and may I say, I may not have *learned* as much history as I did in school, but historical fiction put the dates and geographical locations and political machinations into human terms, into how these events impacted and affected the lives of characters I came to care about. Historical fiction made history come alive, and made connections with political events going on today.

I'd always read fantasy--fairy tales, happy-ever-after stuff. In my teens I discovered late 50s and 60s era science fiction--or perhaps better-termed, speculative fiction. Not hardcore nuts and bolts, at least not all of it, nor castles-in-the-air fantasy, speculative fiction called out the faults and deliberate agendas of governments and politics by describing, detailing, and discussing otherworld counterparts. By inviting me to take that step or two away from my own milieu, such fiction gave me better perspective, and taught me to dissect policy for motive, and who gains, who loses in such action.

I can't begin to detail all the authors--all my teachers, but early Heinlein, Smith, Asimov, Bradbury, and Ellison were large among them. I read fantasy, too, storytellers like Norton, McCaffrey, McKillip, McGuin, McKinley--and straight fiction, too. McInnes taught me about maintaining and increasing tension while developing devotion to characters, MacDonald taught me how to rollick through a story, and how to support a family by writing and writing and publishing, and not stopping to "perfect" a book that was going to put bread on the table and pay the light bill--to put that effort on the next book. MacLean taught me how to enspell a reader and keep him or her in the grip of your story, invested in your characters, so deep and fast she didn't have time or breath to be credulous of the mounting tension. I read South by Java Head every winter, gaspng in tropical heat on the page when snow was pelting down outside, and HMS Ulysses every midsummer, mentally freezing like spray on the rigging while sweat rolled down my back from the heat outside. McBain taught me how to move a story along, without wasting wordage, fixing a reader firmly inside the 87th Precinct until the case was solved.

There is a repeating theme here, not of my making: McCaffrey, McKillip, McGuin, McKinley, McInnes, MacDonald, MacLean, McBain...  But there were others, so many others. Science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, cop fiction, spy fiction. Mary Stewart and her "romances," Airs Above the Ground, Madam Will You Talk? Nine Coaches Waiting, and many wonderful more. And then her Arthurians: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, which founded my interest in all things Arthur. Spider Robinson, and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Stardancer, and more. So much, so much fiction.

From childhood I had been interested in the Robin Hood character, his Merry Men, and Maid Marian. It was a recurring interest, and I began to keep the books I found about him. Eventually, his legend became a pursuit, culminating in a volume found in a local bookseller's, published in 1851, with leather spine and quarterboards, and marbled covers. The spine was detached, and the seller referred me to a bookmender, who turned out to be a joy. Tiny little shop near a university campus, his bread and butter was restoring family bibles and textbooks of retiring and deceased faculty that were of worth. Antiquers kept trying to buy his tools, some dating back to the 1700s, "But they're not collectibles, they're in use! I need them to do my work!" He later restored a leatherbound university edition of Rabbie Burns, and I discovered a heretofore unsuspected tendency for my panties to melt when a deep-voiced male recited in a Scots accent. If OH hadn't been present, it might have gotten embarrassing. (fanning) Whuh!

My Ballad of the Legends of Robin Hood and his tales along the borders of...  No, really, the title goes on forever. Hardly anything in the book left to read. It's turgid and ridiculous reading, but I'm glad I have it, along with the Pyle with Wyeth illustrations, and, well, others. My second novel, which resides under the bed along with the first, was called Marian's Tale.

The first was an au after The Empire Strikes Back, prompted by the likes of Alan Dean Foster and Brian Daley. It was completely Jossed by Return of the Jedi, so there you go.

I had no interest in nonfiction and biography, until I did. And suddenly, I was reading Anais Nin's diary, Virginia Woolf's letters, Annie Dillard, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, and May Sarton's journals, serially, Letters from Menabilly, letters from Du Maurier to Oriel Malet. Suddenly I wanted to snoop everybody's correspondence and journals and diaries. I devoured everything I could find. I had always disliked "Southern Lit," and now I found myself exploring Shelby Foote's and Walker Percy's dialog, and from them to Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe--not that I enjoyed that particular esthetic any more than I had before, but I did give it a fair shot.

I discovered Bill Moyers' The Language of Life, about poets attending the Geraldine R. Dodge poetry festival...and opened up a whole new spectrum of poets for me, particularly Jane Kenyon, Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton, Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo... I signed up for poetry classes at a local college, other students and I formed a writing group. The college and our teacher, who was also Dean, founded the Center for Women Writers and began to organize workshops and guest lectures. They offered us meeting space, and eventually we founded another writing group. And I wrote, and I kept reading. I found a local university press, and the Irish poets they published, and I read them all. I discovered Heany, and Duffy. I stumbled across Marge Piercy's poems and from there to the book that completely changed my perspective on life, Woman on the Edge of Time.

Right at this moment, I'm working my way through Seanan McGuire's works. Who knows where I'll go from there?

Comments

[aerynsun5.livejournal.com]

Walker Percy--def in my top five. I was in NOLA once for a meeting, and my friend and I rented a car and drove across the lake to Covington. We were very excited when we found a bookstore called The Percy Legacy. It was Sunday, so it was closed, and we never found out if it was really related to Walker Percy, but we chose to believe it was. We were crazy happy.