There are a handful of people out there who actually believe I am well-read. Not to toot my own horn too much but they have good reason for thinking so: one look at my bookshelf here in Bucheon and you'll find Sherwood Anderson, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, John Berger, Jorge Luis Borges, Andre Brink, (Greg has my Calvino), Bruce Chatwin, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene, (traded in my Elfride Jelinek), (lent Kat my Kundera), D.H. Lawrence, Cormac McCarthy, V.S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Orhan Pamuk, W.G. Sebald, John Updike and Raymond Williams (how will I ever get all this home?). To probably misquote Borges: "Some boast of the books they've written, I boast of those I've read." For me it's merely a case of owning them that gets me bragging; the task of reading is clearly secondary.
Still, I have read most of them (53% counts as most, right?) and so it pains me to have to admit that my writing still smacks of a pathetic Sex and the City rip-off. If the bloody-obvious hasn't already smacked you in the face like Carrie receiving the cold shoulder from Mr. Big (again) then take a quick look at the "But have we? Have I?" section of my "Is Teaching English the New Unemployment?" posting - and for that matter take note of the title - and do your best not to wince quite much as Miranda having to listen to one of Samantha's stories.
Just a few minutes ago, Kristina - perhaps wanting to hand me an olive branch after pointing out the Candace Bushnell connection - asked me if whenever I get into a writer do I begin to take on their personalities. "Well obviously not!" I erupted. "I'm not influenced by Sex and the City!" It's nice to know that reading nothing but Borges the last ten months has paid off so fruitfully.
A dozen years ago I was consciously trying to ape Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and now it seems this diary/confessional approach of mine has come back to bight me (is there a possible SATC reference I can use here? Please write in your suggestions). The lit-snob in me refuses to pick up a copy of Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude because of the hideous "Oprah Book Club" logo emblazoned on the cover but my cred takes a hit when my prose sounds like something Frances Mayes wouldn't cliche to death.
I guess there is a back-handed compliment, however: I write like a successful, published author. I'm still a long way off from penning the sort of beauteous ramblings that my beloved Sebald was able to do so effortlessly but maybe there was a time when everyone thought there was a bit too much Pearl S. Buck in him as well.
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You found Barthes by Barthes?! Brilliant!
Listen: a writer's influence is like an venn diagram with circles accumulating into the infinite . . . you fit in in all the spaces the circles overlap, sometimes here, sometimes there . . .
Besides, your writing reminds me most strongly of long, drunkenly-erudite, jazz-fuelled, tubby-dog snortin' conversations. Only written instead of spoken, mumbled, excitedly blurted . . . and hell, I'll take all of the above.
However, the Sex & the City references are way outside my ken. I'm glad you're on the Borges diet, though. That either makes you stronger of mind or completely crackers, depending on how strong you are (actually, perhaps both at once).
As flipped-out as Gödel, JD.
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