So I dropped four recent posts into this dingus (How could I not?) and found that I write alternately like --
Lovecraft
Adams
Nabokov
And Vonnegut.
Which is both exciting (since that is exactly what I've been shooting for) and suggests that I should strongly consider some kind of personality reintegration therapy ASAP.
Then (having asked myself "What Nabokov would do?") I dumped the entire text of "Harrison Bergeron" into it (These things must be rigorously tested!) and discovered that while Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. did indeed write very much like
For some reason, Ernest Hemingway wrote like James Joyce.
Which was a little upsetting.
Shakespeare wrote like Kipling.
Which, if nothing else, should make the bar fights in Literature Heaven pretty interesting.
Mark Twain wrote like H.P Effing Lovecraft.
Which was disturbing.
And, most surprising of all, it turns out O. Henry wrote like Mario Puzo
Which was downright shocking to me!
Until I went back and re-read his most famous story and rediscovered (ah, the classics; always ready to hand over some fresh insight you never noticed before) that while the climax "The Gift of the Magi" is indeed a signature, heartwarming O. Henry twist, the brief denouement following the climax and the story's actual ending does, in fact, feature a series of brutal, power-consolidating revenge killings.
And so it goes.
And speaking of writers, how about going over to Casa Blue Gal and dropping a couple of bucks in her tip jar to help her defray the cost of getting a substantial and cranky portion the Liberal blogosphere out of bed, bathed, dressed and off to the barricades every effing day even though they don't wanna?
13 comments:
I would be afraid mine would come back with something like "A Chimp on Shrooms" or "Ted Bundy". ..which makes me wonder what it would do with the Bible? Or better yet, the collective musings of Ms. Palin?
O. Henry's recently discovered original manuscripts did in fact include an addendum to The Gift of the Magi, titled simply "Fools Die" that graphically depicts the gangland executions of the hair and watch shop owners, who were shot by Jim from the carriage Della was driving fast through town.
Horseshit. You write like Driftglass, unique.
I don't know how, but you have found a chord or note that resonates fiercely in these times, and no one else is playing it.
There is a meeting point, fulcrum if you will, between 5 things: compassion, outrage, mockery, despair, and hope. You have identified the exact latitude and longitude of that specific point in space and time.
I don't know if that was your intention, but that is the result.
And you are the only writer hitting it with a style that truly is unique. (read: saleable).
Do the book my friend.
After continued avoidance (literally back to college lit 30 years ago) I finally read Ulysses this year. Wanting to vent my frustration with Joyce's excesses, I logged on to a lit blog where there was a hilarious thread about an imagined encounter between Hemingway & Joyce and how each would write about it.
No, I'm not even in your league when it comes to literature. Still, kudos for bringing a smile to my face. A wonderful, cultural sorbet to cleanse my palate of the latest Palin saga going through the regular media.
Oh, the horror, my first try came back as Stephen King!
That's enough for me.
I have to agree with Denny above, dude, you are one of a kind and do the fucking book already.
best wishes
Busted
Me = Kurt Vonnegut
Barack Obama = Charles Dickens
Sarah Palin = Stephen King
Rush Limbaugh = Margaret Atwood
David Vitter = Dan Brown
Billy Nungesser = Stephen King
Mitch Landrieu = Stephen King
Kibo = Dan Brown
I saw this over at Crooked Timber... I'll play with it later. But nice tests!
I agree with Denny; just do the book, man.
I write like Robert Louis Stevenson. That pleases me ridiculously.
A chapter from my humorous Regency Romance ... I write like Leo Tolstoy! Wow.
Hey, I write like Raymond Chandler, much to my delight.
Drifty, I'd buy a gazillion copies of any book you wrote. You are one in a gazillion.
I write like James Joyce!
o happy happy joy joy
Thanks for the props, Drifty. And you gotta do da book.
yah, do the G'dang book!
both of yous..
You and Blue, keep on truckin'!
can't sign in - must change a knappy
-skunqesh
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