It
is becoming a sport for me to read books about books – and writers, language,
publishing, writing, reading, editing and all facets of the book world. I just finished a nicely packaged one, Great Modern Writers: A to Z by Andy Tushy with Caroline
Taggart.
The
book purports, on its back cover, to be "an accessible, covetable guide to 52
key modern writers." The hardcover, glossy-paged book features essays on the
great modern writers who flourished in the 20th century. Those selected are ones that are being read
decades later. Their legacy may even
last centuries. But, as with any book of
lists, there will be entries that are expected, controversial, even
disagreeable. The author acknowledges: “There are some names here that I’m sure no
one would argue with – Atwood, Camus, Joyce, Updike – and some that are more
contentious.”
When
reviewing the authors included in the book, one has to wonder how we can narrow
down all of the writers who won awards, had best-sellers, and received critical
acclaim. If you even try to look at a
list of those who won Pulitzers and Nobel Prizes, you’d have to choose from hundreds
of writers. And even amongst
best-sellers, you’d choose between tens of thousands of authors.
I
learned a number of factoids about the great writers featured here. For instance, I didn’t realize Maya Angelou’s
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in
1969 became the first-ever best-seller by a black woman. I also didn’t know early in her career she
was employed as a street car conductor in San Francisco. She reportedly got the job after sitting at
the transit office for two weeks until they hired her.
I
didn’t know that Albert Camus, famous for The
Stranger, lost his dad when he was just a few months old and survived a
childhood that was plagued by poverty and ill health.
Whereas
we know Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf died at their own hands, I didn’t
know that George Orwell was actually born and raised in India or that he died in
his 40’s from tuberculosis.
I
also liked the way these great writers had their writings summarized:
On
Simon de Beauvoir: “In her massive and
ground-breaking work, The Second Sex
(1949), she took the view that men imposed on women an ideal of femininity, and
that both sexes were then disappointed when women didn’t measure up.”
On
Samuel Beckett: “Waiting for Godot is one of the most important plays of the Theatre
of the Absurd – funny, yes, but unsettling and pessimistic, showing the
pointless of human endeavor.”
On
T.S. Eliot: “The Waste Land …is a poem about lives that have no meaning in a
society that is in a state of collapse, and it captures the despair of the
post. World War I generation as no other
work of art has done before or since.”
On
William Golding: “Lord of the Flies…depicts
the disintegration of society.”
On
J.D. Salinger: “In 1951, when The
Catcher in the Rye was published, the word “teenager” was a recent coinage and
the publishing genre “Young Adult” was unheard of. The disenchanted voice of 16-year-old Holden
Caulfield delighted young people and shocked their parents everywhere.”
On
James Joyce: “On a deeper level, it is a
study of a modern Everyman portrayed in epic terms, experiencing a series of
what Joyce called “epiphames”-finding? Spectacular truths in ordinary
things. It is also a huge experiment
with form and language, with interior monologues and stream of consciousness. In many people’s assessment, it is the
greatest novel of the 20th century.”
In
reading the book about great authors and their masterpieces, it made me want to
read or re-read some of these young classics.
If you’re looking for a reminder of – or an introduction to – the top
works of the past century – read this book.
Here’s
a quick summary of some of the featured writers and their best works:
Margaret
Atwood – The Handmaids Tale
James
Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son
William
Faulkner – The Sound and the Fury
F.
Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Aldous
Huxley – Brave New World
Franz
Kafka – Metamorphosis
D.H.
Lawrence – Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Toni
Morrison – Jazz
Vladimir
Nabokov – Lolita
George
Orwell – 1984
Marcel
Provst – In Search of Lost Time
Salman
Rushdie - Satanic Verses
Jean
Paul Sartre – Being and Nothingness
John
Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
John
Updike – The Rabbit
Kurt
Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five
Virginia
Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway
DON”T
MISS THESE!!!
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