Be my research subjects, Lounge!

[nolabear]

I'm supposed to write an article for a little psychoanalytic organizational publication on "voice". It's an easy one to cliche the hell out of. I got to thinking about how there are books we read that reflect us somehow, that resonate with a voice tht we know is like ours, but that we don't get a chance to use or fear really expressing--I'm not necessarily talking deep, dark, vulnerable secrets here, but authors' voices to which you respond "I wish I'd written that" or "I COULD have written that."

For me, it varies. When I was a miserable teen with too much death around I went through Edgar Allan Poe for the real creepiness of death, Ray Bradbury for hope, Joseph Heller for irreverence, and, yeah, Ayn Rand for sheer immature you're-not-the-boss-of-me cussedness. As an adult I love a wordsmith, and have returned to my Southern roots a lot. I love magic realism and beautiful language and people on the edge, as with Swamplandia!, The Sound of Building Coffins, Salvage the Bones. I developed a taste for characters who are a little strange and trying to figure things out. That's largely what I write too, at least in my novel.

I could go on, but wonder about you all. I won't be specific in what I'm writing, just say that it's a compilation of people speaking in relative anonymity. If it gets done and I like it I'll post it.

Help a lady out. Whose work speaks for you, and why?

[geardaddy]

1. Kurt Vonnegut

for his wonderful absurdity and straightforward way of calling out bullshit in society.

[HarveyDarkey]

9. My first thought also

Nothing else came to mind ahead of KV

[turtlerescue1]

21. Vonnegut

Harrison Bergeron. Welcome to the Monkey House...and Wanda June.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Nance Greggs

[Flaxbee]

3. Barbara Kingsolver, Alexander McCall Smith, Colin Dexter

Jane Austen, Anne George

Kind, gentle, smart, observant and often extremely funny voices.

There are more, I'm just blanking and have to get out of here. Will post them later if I can!

Oh, let's add Carl Hiassen, just for sheer lunacy and on-the-point skewering of a variety of loathesome personalities.

[nolabear]

5. And welcome to DU!

back.

[MiddleFingerMom]

8. Spam auto-post. (alerted to MIRTed)

[nolabear]

15. Thanks! What would I do without you!

I am so naive and trusting.

[bluesbassman]

6. Steinbeck.

I appreciate his emphasis on character and integrity, and the underdog qualities many of his characters display resonates with me.

[MiddleFingerMom]

12. Totally agree. He had a gift for finding nobility in the "commonest" of people.

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Favorite? Cannery Row and its sequel, Sweet Thursday (the movie with Nick Nolte
and Debra Winger rocks, too!!!)
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.

[rug]

7. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Especially Venus in Furs

What?

[nolabear]

16. *ahem*

[rug]

17. Don't hit me!

[angel823]

10. Tom Robbins

I love the way he phrases things - he can be both dismal and hopeful all at the same time. And terribly funny.

His characters are somewhat strange, almost to the point of being unbelievable, but I have always been able to lose myself in his characters and stories.

Favorites: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

[MiddleFingerMom]

13. Also agree with Tom Robbins...

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... for his smartassedness, his cynically exuberant optimism, his raunchiness
and his absolute genius for simile and metaphor. I have a hard time choosing
a favorite among "Still Life with Woodpecker", "Jitterbug Perfume", and "Skinny
Legs and All".
.
.
.

[angel823]

14. yeah

what you said...!

Angel in Texas

[RiffRandell]

11. Tom Perrotta, Jonathan Franzen.

Both use hilarious descriptions of people that you know in real life.

[HopeHoops]

18. Tolkien.

Main reason: I'm a geek.

Secondary reason: His ability to make the known fantasy appear real is amazing. I've read "The Hobbit", "LOTR", and "The Silmarillion" more times than I can remember. The imagery and adventure never gets stale, even when you know how it all turns out.

Other than Tolkien, I'd say Sir Arthur C. Clarke and George Orwell for reasons that should be obvious.

[Kali]

19. oh hell, I am so moody and all over the place

I can go from Wendell Berry to the Rude Pundit in the same half hour

[Honeycombe8]

20. Thoreau's On Walden Pond for "I think like that." Agatha Christie, for...

Agatha Christie for "I wish I'd written that" and "I wish I were living that" and "I wish life were like that" and "I wish I were clever and talented enough to have written that." And sometimes, just sometimes, I think that maybe I COULD have written that. Any Agatha Christie.

Thoreau also reflects my "I wish I were brave enough to live like that, or at least a modern version of that." But then I wouldn't really want to live like that, so why do I think that? I guess the drama of living in nature's surroundings, and the pretty picture he paints of it (leaving out the not so pretty parts). But his is a voice that I suppose is the only author whose voice is close to mine. But at the same time, I'm not at all like him, if that makes sense. I suppose my sensibilities are the same as his. That's not to say that book is my favorite, or even close to it. It just reflects my thoughts about certain things, which I think is what you are asking.

The only poem I've read that I wished I could have written, because I think it's a masterpiece, is The Raven. I'm not crazy about poems. But The Raven is different. It has everything...mystery, supernatural, possible insanity (or not), sadness, it reads well, one line pushes me to read the next, it's lyrical. It's a masterpiece, to me. But I don't think it represents my way of thinking. I just love it, is all.

I like so many books, so many authors. But if I understand your question, I've connected with only a few on the deep level that I think you're asking about.

[Marie Marie]

22. Jack Trimpey

(dedicated to all the addicts who have complicated my life). Love the way he speaks to them by cutting through the bull.