Books

Please list a few of the most influential books you have read and briefly explain how they have influenced you.

Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost- He gave me examples of how you can make writing in present tense work and how you can pull off making female lead characters as strong as their male counterparts.  The irony of creating his outspoken character Anil, a forensic anthropologist native to Sri Lanka, showed me how he attempted to push past gender discrimination by setting her smart personality against the backdrop of this third world country.

Ernest Hemingway, Farewell to Arms- He showed me that using stream of consciousness can add intrigue to your writing by making it come off as a diary.  By using this method he was also able to describe critical events (his child dying at birth, Santiago ridiculed in Old Man in the Sea) with objection.

John Steinbeck, East of Eden-He demonstrated how to really show character development for example by writing about a fight that the main character Adam has with his brother as a youth.  He then builds upon this relationship for the rest of the novel.  He also was able to show how characters like Cathy, Aron, and Cal are also neither good nor bad but multi-dimensional.

Charles Bukowski, Post Office- Gave me an example of how to use stream of consciousness to reflect objectively about the drama of heated, unhealthy relationships, jobs, and race horsing. His writing influenced me to be attracted to seeking out a gritty, humble style of reflecting.

Garrison Keillor, Liberty- Was attracted to him because he showed me how to combine a sense of roots with humor, and liberation from feeling religiously reserved.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome-Back when I was a teenager I remember being influenced by her elegance at being able to objectively describe Ethan and Matte’s crippled lives when they tried to liberate themselves from their provincial town by falling in love.

Rabbit Run series by John Updike-Showed me how a writer can make an audience fall in love with the setting if the narrator is feels comfortable in his blue collar upbringings (in this case the steel town of Brewer, PA).  He gave me another example of how to use stream of consciousness to accept one’s (Henry’s) 1950’s era fate of being stuck in a flat marriage and as a car salesman. He helped his audience feel beget of sprit when his main character liberates himself from oppressive circumstances by relying on impulse.

Sylvia Plath, the Bell Jar- Was another example of how to accept wanting to commit suicide by writing through stream of conscience.  Through “Victoria Lucas” she proved that you can move back and forth from being a star to feeling alone and the transition to either helps create a wrestling within the character that helps us understand their scholar and their haunts that made them seek out suicide.

David Halberstam, The Fifties-I could see how using a timeline to transition between political to transmotive innovations, to foreign uprisings could work to be moving and to see the decade for how influential it was.

 Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird-This book rubbed off on me more because it was my father’s reason for wanting to become a judge, than anything else.  I looked at Scout the whole way through the book from my dad’s intentions of seeking out a respite for the innocent.  Later though while I taught this in high school I saw how Lee was able to use Scout as a character who was able to question the morals of her society because she was six years old. Like Mark Twain I caught on to the idea that you could use young characters to criticize and help change unwavering, prejudice societies.