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Aug. 14th, 2007 01:43 amChekhov once said of Tolstoy, "As long as there is a Tolstoy in literature it is simple and gratifying to be a literary figure; even the awareness of not having accomplished anything and not expecting to accomplish anything in the future is not so terrible because Tolstoy makes up for all of us. His career is justification for all the hopes and expectations reposed in literature."[1]
Although I don't feel that way about Tolstoy, I feel that affection and longing for a great many authors, not least Jane Austen. Fans all want to be Austen's friend and call her Jane, because she speaks like a friend through her books. She trusts us with her caustic insights, she allows us to see her stiff upper lip quavering. But whom would Austen befriend? In Becoming Jane, the writers imagine her meeting Ann Radcliffe. At that moment, how lovely to be Ann Radcliffe, to have Jane Austen turn to you for advice!
I've not yet become a writer because I haven't figured out what I want to say, or that it's worth saying. But writers like Austen and Garcia Marquez make me want to be one of their number.
Currently I am in love with Love in the Time of Cholera. What a profoundly beautiful book.
[1] Qtd. in Nicholas Shakespeare, "Introduction" to Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, transl. Edith Grossman (New York: Knofp, 1985), pp. ix-x.
Although I don't feel that way about Tolstoy, I feel that affection and longing for a great many authors, not least Jane Austen. Fans all want to be Austen's friend and call her Jane, because she speaks like a friend through her books. She trusts us with her caustic insights, she allows us to see her stiff upper lip quavering. But whom would Austen befriend? In Becoming Jane, the writers imagine her meeting Ann Radcliffe. At that moment, how lovely to be Ann Radcliffe, to have Jane Austen turn to you for advice!
I've not yet become a writer because I haven't figured out what I want to say, or that it's worth saying. But writers like Austen and Garcia Marquez make me want to be one of their number.
Currently I am in love with Love in the Time of Cholera. What a profoundly beautiful book.
[1] Qtd. in Nicholas Shakespeare, "Introduction" to Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, transl. Edith Grossman (New York: Knofp, 1985), pp. ix-x.