Author Recommendation Poll

[queerbychoice]

Because I'm truly ridiculously and quite possibly unhealthily addicted to lengthening my already unrealistically long reading list (and because it's a terribly convenient way to procrastinate about julnawrimo), I'm already feeling a need for another Author Recommendation Poll.

As in the past, all of the following are authors I've never read any books by, but have been planning to try reading books by. Some of them write fiction and some of them write nonfiction. I expect to eventually get around to reading most of these authors, but I'm particularly interested in any negative comments you might have about them, because negative comments sometimes cause me to remove particular authors from my reading list. For example, if you told me that one of the many queer authors on this list writes books that have a particularly noticeable pro-"gay gene" slant to them, that would probably make me much less interested in reading them (although I did read Radclyffe Hall and actually sort of liked her in a "What an interesting lunatic you are" kind of way). Also, if a particular author gets very few positive recommendations, I generally look them up in Google to get a sense of how well-known they are, and if they seem to be very well-known yet they're still not getting recommended much by people I know, I move them to the bottom of my priorities list. Oh, and some people's recommendations are given greater weight than others' because I'm familiar enough with their literary tastes to have particularly great faith in them (gamesiplay, frankepi, theobscure, rekraft, I'm looking at you people).

[Poll #525152]

(As usual, don't worry if you haven't read any books by any of these people, because I haven't either.)

Comments

[yourapple.livejournal.com]

julnawrimo?
I failed nanowrimo terribly, but considering the free time I have in July, maybe I should give this a shot.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Aw. I'm flattered, although also a little nervous now because I don't want to give bad recommendations!

Regarding my answers-- I haven't read as many of the authors on this one. I like some of the authors (e.g., Waugh, Balzac, O'Brien), but not so much that I'd rave about them. Burgess can be very good, although I don't like A Clockwork Orange all that much; my favorite of his is Nothing Like the Sun, which is a fascinating (if unexpected) look at William Shakespeare. I love Gogol, but I'm not sure if he's your type or not, and the same goes for Dos Passos. (Although I think Dos Passos is really fantastic at times, so he's at least worth a shot.)

I keep meaning to read Hollinghurst's The Swimming Pool Library, because people have raved about it. Same with Ethan Mordden's novels, although I have read his nonfiction books on Broadway theater, and he writes wonderfully.

Do you have Fierstein on the list because you're considering Torch Song Trilogy? Because if you're into reading plays, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen is also incredible. (I actually saw it onstage first and prefer it on the page, because sometimes onstage it moves too fast to savor.) His novels are fair, too, although much less satisfying. In a similar vein, what about Tony Kushner? I find him ideologically problematic sometimes, but he can write circles around most people.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"Burgess can be very good, although I don't like A Clockwork Orange all that much; my favorite of his is Nothing Like the Sun, which is a fascinating (if unexpected) look at William Shakespeare."

Oh, now I'm going to have to read that.

"Do you have Fierstein on the list because you're considering Torch Song Trilogy?"

Yes.

"Because if you're into reading plays, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen is also incredible."

Onto my list it goes!

"In a similar vein, what about Tony Kushner? I find him ideologically problematic sometimes, but he can write circles around most people."

I've only read Angels in America, but I loved that. What did you find ideologically problematic about him?

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Torch Song Trilogy is a good read. Very funny, very poignant.

I loved AiA, too, and had fewer problems with it--mostly just minor political differences, which is true with just about any political writer. (Although I loved, loved, loved the bit about "The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it." God, that's good.) It's more his earlier work that bothers me, because it's less subtle, more politics than plot in a way, and that never fails to turn me off. A Bright Room Called Day was one I had particular problems with. The premise was an equation of Reagan = Hitler, and while I'm not unsympathetic to Reagan-bashing at all, I think that's a formulation so broad and incendiary as to become almost meaningless. It has flashes of beautiful writing--see here--but it's less effective for me. Angels in America is still highly politicized, of course, but the politics don't overtake and devour its finer points. I appreciate that.

[alysbowie.livejournal.com]

I recommend "Katherine" by Anya Seton especially. I saw it in trade paperback the other day, and I had thought it was out of print, but it seems to have been re-released. It's excellent.

[disi.livejournal.com]

i have only read friend green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe, but i loved it so much more than the movie there just aren't words.
but i haven't read any other fannie flagg.

mostly i love southern female writers who love and write about the south, though, so i'm probably biased.

[zdamiana.livejournal.com]

The only one on your list that I have read is Fannie Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe." I moderately enjoyed it. It got me through an otherwise pretty boring couple of days at my grandmother's house a few years ago. It wasn't anything particularly wonderful, though. I wouldn't put it on my list of "highly recommended" reading, but I also didn't dislike it enough to actively advise against reading it.

[lm.livejournal.com]

I not only haven't read any of those people, I've only even heard of two of them.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you'd asked me a month ago, I'd only have heard of about a dozen of them myself.

A lot of them are names I got off lists of little-known queer writers. I looked up the names on Amazon, eliminated the ones who got poor ratings on there, and then posted the remaining ones here to get further opinions.

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

Perhaps predictably, I'm voting for Elias Canetti and André Gide. I never quite got into Canetti's fiction (I started with Auto da Fé and never even finished it) but I like his non-fiction much more: his autobiographical writing (The Play of the Eyes and so on) and of course, the amazingly-synthesised Crowds and Power as well as more fragmentary and aphoristic writing, like Notes from Hampstead. And I'll let you judge Gide for yourself (yes, soon).

Of the others, I also quite liked Balzac when I was, oh, I don't know, maybe 17, and actually had time to read him. Even so, I rapidly realised that once he started describing something - say a room or, worse still, a house - I could safely skip the next 20-30 pages and pick up from wherever I next find dialogue and not feel as if I've missed all that much. (The same goes for most French Realists though, and just why I would be reading French Realists when I generally haven't the patience for these descriptions is, well, a very good question.)

Anthony Burgess - I read A Dead Man in Deptford ages ago, and remember having managed to quite enjoy it even though I'm sure I missed a good deal of the cleverness. But maybe that's because it's about the life of Christopher Marlowe, who I like anyway.

I liked Nikolai Googol too, after reading Dead Souls, but just haven't been in the mood for reading him for years.

I like Waugh too, but not massively.

I believe you already know my opinion of Alan Hollinghurst.

Robert Musil has been on my reading list for ages, only that I haven't found anything by him to read.

And I've been meaning to read a certain short piece by Heinrich von Kleist for ages - at least, ever since Philip Pullman cited it as a major influence on His Dark Materials, and I somehow feel sure that if I did manage to find it and read it, I would like it very much.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I got Elias Canetti off your LJ interests list, actually; prior to that I hadn't heard of him. I looked through the reviews of his books, and Crowds and Power is the one I added to my reading list. (I added it before receiving this comment, but your comment confirms my selection nicely.)

"Of the others, I also quite liked Balzac when I was, oh, I don't know, maybe 17, and actually had time to read him. Even so, I rapidly realised that once he started describing something - say a room or, worse still, a house - I could safely skip the next 20-30 pages and pick up from wherever I next find dialogue and not feel as if I've missed all that much."

Oh, just like Proust! (He's probably the only French Realist I've read so far.)

"I believe you already know my opinion of Alan Hollinghurst."

Not really; I've managed to forget it entirely, I'm afraid.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I can definitely recommend J. O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys - I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype, but I loved the first part, and while I have some minor quibbles with the second half, it's still a very good novel.

Marguerite Yourcenar, either Memoirs d'Hadrien or L'Oeuvre au Noir. She's a great author and has been a major influence on my outlook on life; very much worth reading, and not only because of the queer angle.


I remember reading F. Flagg's Fried Tomatoes after I'd seen the movie, but wasn't too impressed with it. Of course it didn't help that I was mainly interested in the romance between Idgie and Ruth, not so much Evelyn's story, which was drawn out much too long for my taste... Frankly, if you've seen the movie I wouldn't bother with the novel.

Roger Peyrefitte... I read, or at least browsed through, one or two of the Alexander books during my teenage days, but I'll be honest and admit it was mostly for the gay erotica. I don't remember liking him much as an author then, but maybe I'd think differently now.

I've read a couple of things by Patricia Highsmith, but could never really connect to her, and much the same can be said for Anthony Burgess.