What I've found in the past three years or so that I have seriously taken up writing again is that I have changed. My writing has changed, my reading has changed, my outlook has changed.
All my reading life, I would have argued that my favourite novels are Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. I still love little Oscar (to the extent that he is tattooed on my arm) and the Buendias, but I re-read the Murakami a couple of years back and thought it was awful.
But are they favourites? No way. My favourite books now, the ones that inform my writing and my world view, are:
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
- The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
I could not write what I'm currently writing without these three works of genius. So as well as recording my own writing journey, I am going to use this blog to revisit some of my favourite novels and revise my original reviews. It'll be fun...
Join me...
