Unread novelists and long-lost typewriters

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac says today, "It's the birthday of novelist Brian Moore, born was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland (1921). Not many people have read him, but he's considered by literary critics to be one of the most influential novelists of the 20th century. Three of his books have been short-listed for the Booker Prize, but none of them have won. When he died a decade ago in Malibu, his obituary in the LA Weekly began, "THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED AND LEAST fashionable writer in Los Angeles died last week.""

Not many people have read him.  That seems a curious statement, since he was a reasonably prolific writer, with some 27 novels listed on the Wikipedia entry.  Not winning the Booker Prize doesn't necessarily make you an unread author - in fact a lot of people don't read Booker Prize authors for the very reason that they've won the prize.   It usually indicates they're way out, or supra-literary, or so innovative that there's little story to read.   All of which is as much of a generalisation as the statement 'not many people have read him.'  

Talking of being prolific, I sometimes wonder if writers are now more prolific because they use PCs, or laptops, or netbooks or the like.  I know I am, but whether being more prolific necessarily means you're a better writer is another matter.   Blog posting doesn't necessarily bring out the best in you, for starters, and that's where a huge amount of my writing is done these days.   There was a time when I wrote by hand, though it's almost so long ago that I can't remember.   If my writing hasn't been done on a keyboard, it's been done on a typewriter - I taught myself to type almost as soon as I could earn enough money to buy a typewriter.   And a great thundering thing it was too.   Sometime later I bought a portable one, about half the size, and probably less than half the weight.  It was a great little job, but I have no idea what happened to it now - nor what happened to my first typewriter.   Perhaps I sold them....?   Who knows?

Simon Barnes....again

For the past six weeks or so I've been reading Simon Barnes' book, How to be Wild. The following quote comes from section 63.

Science cannot replace religion, still less. God. That is not the job of science, despite all the fuss made by Dawkins, the proselytising atheist. But science can at least address the God Questions; and give us a deeper and more vivid understanding of life. And as I read about life, and as I walk along my own entagnled bank, I can feel very deeply that there is grandeur in the deep, puzzling, buzzling, complex nature of life that these great books have shown me.

The reason I'm taking so long to read the book is that it's very much one that you pick up in an odd moment and put down again after a couple of its short chapters, unlike The Prestige, which I devoured in a few days. (More on that book in a later post.) So I've just got Barnes' book out of the library for the third time, and hopefully will finish it on this round.

And speaking of Dawkins, I came across this quote about him and other atheistic popularizers in a blog I read most days, The Website of Unknowing. Carl McColman's referring to a book by Becky Garrison, called: The New Atheist Crusaders and their Unholy Grail: The Misguided Quest to Destroy Your Faith.

He writes:
Basically mimicking the fetish for intolerance that has come to characterize religious conservatives in our day, the new atheists have made it fashionable to dismiss religion as not only “untrue,” but unworthy of even the right to exist.

Polysyllabic Spree and more

I’ve been reading Nick Hornby’s absurdly titled (intentionally so) The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, which someone reviewed in the ODT recently. It’s a collection of his columns for some magazine called The Believer (a rather pretentious magazine, if Hornby’s comments are anything to go by), and they are by stages hilarious, intriguing (in that you want to read everything, practically, that he’s read), detailed, annoying (there’s often too little detail, and he demands a wider reading habit than even I’ve got), and very quotable. Not that I’m going to quote anything at the moment, but I probably will.
Like me, he’s realised that a reading life doesn’t require you to read books just because people ‘who know’ say you should; nor does it require you to finish every book you start. Consequently I have never finished that dreary Booker Prize lump of lead called ‘the bone people’ (the pretentious, if I may be allowed to re-use the word, use of non-capitals marks it out as important – it isn’t). Equally I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that a book I’m supposed to be reviewing called Just Who Does He Think He Is? by George Webby, is going to go the way of unfinished books. I am sick of people writing about their lives and telling me when and how they masturbated and seeming to think this is somehow important. It isn’t. 100% of men have masturbated in their youth, either because they thought they should, because they just wanted to, because it seemed a good idea at the time, because they couldn’t help it, because if they didn’t all their friends would somehow know – or they have not masturbated, either because they were convinced they shouldn’t, or because they didn’t want to, or because it never seemed that great an idea, or because they were perfectly able to help, or because they didn’t give a toss (if you’ll excuse the pun) what their friends thought.
I couldn’t care less about Webby’s sexual life. I thought the book was about what he did in the theatre, which to me would be much more interesting. (It may eventually be, if he ever gets there.) Nor do I care that he thinks he knows more about religion than God. He doesn’t, so why doesn’t he keep his trap shut on the subject? And how is it that he gives his father a mere two pages of existence – almost as an afterthought when he realises he’s hardly mentioned the bloke (who fathered ten children in the family) – and prats on about his mother endlessly? Did his father have no life or character? He must have had something to have lived in a house with Webby and the other siblings, all of whom (except the one who died young) go almost entirely unmentioned.
Well, there we are: I’ve practically written the review already, and I haven’t even got past page 65.