Literary evangelism
Posted by Matt Staggs
If you’re as passionate about reading as I am – and I suspect the majority of your are – then you probably like to share your love with others. Sometimes my love for a particular author’s work goes far beyond just blurbing them on the net or talking them up to friends: it escalates into something practically evangelical, if you will.
There are some writers for whom I find myself a willing acolyte, spreading their gospel not only throughout our small kingdom of devoted readers and dyed-in-the-wool bibliophiles, but also to practically any literate person I meet.
This doesn’t happen all the time, but as I crack the surface of popular fiction and dig deeper into the authorial substrata the richer earth there often yields a surprising number of worthy voices, writers whose works are jewels only waiting to be brought sparkling into the light of day.
I imagine that you are familiar with a few of my own readerly passions, but I’d like to know about yours. Who are the authors you celebrate? Whose works are gospel to you? For whom do you evangelize? Don’t feel limited to lesser-known authors, either. Who move you, and why?
June 4, 2008 at 10:43 am
There are a few books I always buy if I see them in a used bookstore, like Stanislaw Lem’s Cyberiad, because I give them away to people all the time. Once I left one in a dentist’s office. I’m also always trying to get my friends to read R. A. Lafferty, which is hard for some reason–maybe they’re confusing him with R. A. Salvatore.
June 4, 2008 at 11:35 am
I like to turn people on to Borges whenever possible. Since he wrote no novels, he isn’t the huge cultural staple I think he would have otherwise become. I challenge anyone to read “The Garden of Forking Paths” and then think about what the Internet is becoming and not come away with the idea that Borges had a very precise crystal sphere of some sort.
Most of what I love about speculative fiction is contained in tiny gems in his ficciones.
June 4, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Anything by James Morrow, who twists my head around and makes me happy for the experience.
Jim Dodge. Only published two novels, plus a very short novella, yet his STONE JUNCTION remains one my favourite novels of all time. Why he isn’t publishing anymore is a crime.
And Vonnegut, because…well, duh.
June 4, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I second Corey’s recommendation of “Stone Junction.” One of my favourite novels, too. I’ve probably turned on more people to that novel than any other. No one’s complained, either.
June 4, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Right now I am busy proselytizing the wonders of Berry Henderon’s “A Matter of Anachronisms, Archetypal Yet Curious in Their Implications” which is up (for free!) at Behind the Wainscot right now.
http://behindthewainscot.com/?p=187
June 4, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I proselytize the two Italian prelates of the House of Good Writing, Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino. Excepting rare or sentimental volumes, I tend to offer texts off my shelves without any real hope of their return, and have replaced more copies of books by these authors than I have of the rest of my library combined. If that makes even the tiniest lick of sense.
In the arena of beautifully written and informative nonfiction, I espouse the Good Works of Barbara Tuchman (and particularly “A Distant Mirror”) with the zeal of a flagellate.
The manga artist and writer Junji Ito I push at people with the same force used when convincing an acolyte in the comic field that this Alan Moore chap is someone worth looking into. I find Ito’s stuff to be the creepiest contemporary horror in any country in any medium, and with the recent mainstream availability of his work converting the uninitiated is as simple as going into a purveyor of graphic novels and poking through the I’s.
June 4, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Vonnegut, also because well duh if you’ve read him (and if you haven’t I’d recommend that our next three books are The Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse-5 and Mother Night, in that order). I pimped Lynch before he was out until I realised I didn’t even need to as Locke and the Bastards pimp themselves just fine.
Most importantly? Matthew Woodring Stover. Or Matt Stover, depending which book cover you’re reading. Heroes Die is one of the best books I’ve read, and Blade of Tyshalle a masterpiece. His Revenge of the Sith novelisation takes a bad film and makes an incredible story with bangin’ prose. The one true God of writing today.
June 4, 2008 at 5:47 pm
The only author whose books I buy each time I see them in stores (at least second-hand) is David Markson, who seems to me the writer with the widest disparity between his worth and his renown. Another author whose importance I insist upon at the risk of becoming tiresome is Donald Barthelme.
In the world of speculative fiction, Jeff’s own City of Saints and Madmen has gotten pushed on a lot of people by yours truly, as has Gene Wolfe’s work, particularly Peace.
June 4, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Since my recent trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota, I find myself pushing a book I read several years ago — Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz. An easy read. Epic. Poignant. The author did a good job of presenting the Lakota culture and mindset. Anyone who likes fantasy should enjoy this nonfiction novel, though it DOES NOT have a happy ending. Everyone should read it.
June 4, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis is a book I buy everytime I see it in a second hand bookshop. I’ve given many copies of it away with evangelical zeal. It’s one of my all time favourite books along with of course Whittemore’s Jerusalem Quartet, which I collect for myself.
June 4, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Michael Moorcock. Still amazed how many people I know read fantasy and haven’t heard of him.
Tim Willocks. I read Green River Rising at an impressionable age and it’s always stuck with me. His latest, The Religion, is long, bloody, and excellent.
I’ve pushed Norman Mailer’s The Fight on a lot of people, along with DeLilo’s Underworld.
June 4, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Borges is one and I plan on writing about a dozen or more short pieces (less than 750 words) on some of his obscure works in the coming weeks. Whittemore is another. There are others that I feel more passionate about, but in any book recommendation thread, those are the first two I suggest after I cater to the poster’s own biases.
June 4, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Sadly, I don’t know very many lesser-known authors, so I’ll stick with the big ones. For my reader friends, I’ll suggest anything I enjoyed recently, but for my non-reader friends there are usually only a few books and names I will push forward WRT fiction.
The authors I tend to push on people are Orson Scott Card (esp. Ender’s Game) and some much older stuff – Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Tolkien (yes, there are people who haven’t read him), Douglas Adams and Terri Pratchett. More recently, I’ve been enjoying Neil Gaiman as well, and have been pushing that a little too. I’d push George R. R. Martin, but the books are too huge for me to suggest them to a non-reader. They’re amazing, but they’re not terribly accessible.
For most of these, it’s the characters, the worlds, and the writing that sucks me in and makes me want to tell others. Ender’s Game speaks to me in so many ways, and I know so many people that would identify with Ender. The Giver is a really interesting world, especially to someone uninitiated in SF. Pratchett, while hilarious, also has some fascinating characters. And Gaiman’s writing style is easy to get into, his plotting is gripping, and his world’s are interesting (Airships in Stardust? Ancient, unknown cultures in Neverwhere? Yes, please).
June 5, 2008 at 8:58 am
Donald’s Harrington’s WITH , part ghost story, talking-animal and survival story, as well as so much more, is one of the most moving, odd books I’ve ever read.
June 5, 2008 at 9:12 am
CivilWarLand in bad decline by George Saunders. I don’t know what it is. You tell me. I can’t forget Saunder’s raw images of pop culture aka USA twisted all to pieces. I reread it each May, and then proceed to plant some petunias. “Life is good!”
June 5, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Robert E. Howard, the author of “Conan the Barbarian”–his works are exciting and shamelessly gory. In general I love things that so-called “literary writers” (not literary fantasy, but more the kind of snobbish Creative Writing program-bred writers) despise. Plus there are parallels. We both made our first sales for $16, we were both born in January and born in Texas, and we write the same kinds of things. Not that I would EVER compare myself to him–he is an endlessly more capable writer than I am.
June 6, 2008 at 12:02 am
I second the Donald Harington recommendation. His collected works deserve a course of study in more than one university.
He’s got a new one coming out soon (may have already hit the stores, actually) that I read as an ARC. It’s pretty tightly tied into his other books, it seems, and I’m not sure how well it would go over with someone who’s never read anything else by him.
June 6, 2008 at 8:00 am
China Mieville, Mark Danielewski, and Jeff Vandermeer. I get a kick out of the “Wow, what’s this?” initial reaction that people have when I show them my copy of City Of Saints & Madmen or House Of Leaves. Unlike with the usual novels, they only have to have a quick look to tell, immediately, that something different and quite exciting has been done here. As for Mieville, well, 21st Century British Fantasy begins and ends with him; I can’t really imagine a life without Perdido Street Station in it. I don’t even know if I’d still be reading in the genre if it weren’t for China Mieville.
I’ve become a bit of a Borges evangelist as well, and I’ve been telling everyone that will listen about Stefan Grabinski. The more people that are aware of him, the more chance that somebody will see a reason for more of his works to be translated and published in English, so I think there’s a special case to be made there. It’s one of the things I’d like to be involved in if I ever work in publishing.
Other than that, Saki. My girlfriend lent me a selection of his short stories, and I’ve been passing the word on ever since.
June 6, 2008 at 8:57 am
My first love was Ursula Le Guin. I practically lived in Earthsea and it had a major influence on how I think and feel about a lot of things. More recently I have become besotted with Jack Vance, for the sheer beauty of the language, the wry humour and the strangeness of the worlds he creates. James Blaylock and Tim Powers are other longtime favourites. Then there’s Clark Ashton Smith, though I haven’t exactly gone around pressing copies of his works on my friends like I have for the others… There seems to something special about California and it would be interesting to explore the impact of its landscapes on the fantastic literature produced there. I’m getting quite into Jeff Vandermeer right now, but I don’t know if he has major west coast connections.
June 6, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Oh, Nick DiChario. Love ‘im.
June 6, 2008 at 10:45 pm
[...] less impressed with than most people), and of course Timothy Findley. When Jeff Vandermeer did one of these pieces, I got a lot less out of it, because the vast majority of the authors mentioned were ones I was [...]
June 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Tanith Lee. I know her prose is purple, but I love it nonetheless. I especially enjoy her rewritten fairy tales and her Flat Earth Chronicles.
Jeffrey Ford. Truly a master of the short story. I was enchanted by “The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant,” which I think was the first story of his I read, and I’ve gone on to enjoy many more. His collections from Golden Gryphon are wonderful, and I’m looking forward to his new collection, “The Drowned Life,” due out later this year.
Ted Chiang. He doesn’t write a lot, but everything he writes is golden. All novellas, novellettes and short stories, but just about every single one has been an award winner. “Hell Is the Absence of God” is an especiallly haunting story.
Sean Stewart. I wish he were still regularly writing fiction instead of (I think) video games and the like, because he’s a wonderful writer. There’s a scene in “Night Watch” that so vividly describes the cold that I nearly froze to death just reading it.
Gregory Frost. “Attack of the Jazz Giants” is an amazing collection of short stories, and his latest novel, “Shadowbridge,” is brilliantly imagined. I can’t wait to read the second half of it, “Lord Tophet.”
Felix Gilman shows great promise in his freshman effort, “Thunderer.” I hope he writes more books set in Ararat, because this city he’s created is fascinating — a city of gods, all going about their business independently, all with their own congregations, and all very real. I’m curious about the mountain where time and space seem to shift about, too. Much more to explore here.
Stephen King, my perennial. I don’t know how he does it. I’m convinced that he’ll be read centuries from now, just as we read Poe.
It would not be hard to go on for a long time — I, too, love Borges, Calvino, Mieville — and I’m not stepping outside of genre here, or I’d be talking about Millhauser, Atkinson, Austen, Atwood, Lessing, Lightman, and that’s before I even hit the mysteries. Too many books, too little time. As always.