My Favorite Authors Thus Far, and Why I Read Them

Fiction to Non-Fiction: My Influences and Motivators

"Take the liberty of thinking for yourself. Much more truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way, I promise" - Christopher Hitchens 

Not much time has passed since I finished my university degree and left academic institutions. However, I feel compelled to mention something that may seem to be counter-intuitive upon recognition. I only began to appreciate the written word and reading for its own sake, once I had completed my school studies. To some, this may seem perfectly logical and even something with which they can sympathize; others may feel that this is fundamentally incompatible with academic requirements and success. My explanation is predicated on the chore-making of one's passions by the university, and the suppression of genuine curiosity in favor of mass production of assessments. In short, university commodified my interests. This lead to misdirected resentment and bitterness, giving me the false impression that literature and classical history were rigidly insipid. Once I had distanced myself from the center of examination and bureaucracy, I began to experience what seemed to me to be, the true consolation of print. 

I hold a myriad of titles in my personal library, ranging from political science and philosophy to thriller-fiction and biology. I have started about 30 of these works (about ten percent of my total collection) and completed none. At first glance, that would appear to be unfortunate and irresponsible. I have even tried to reconcile my penchant for lack of completion with science, hypothesizing that my inability to finish a title is correlated with a lack of patience, fostered by excessive instant gratification and its ensuing dopamine release. Plausible, to say the least. However I would now like to focus on the positive aspect of this tendency, seeing how I have thus far neglected it - reverence. My new found love has rendered me ecstatic at the mere consideration of how many books I own, let alone what they have to offer and the education that could result. Although Seneca warned against this type of behavior in his Stoic letters, arguing that one is not truly valuing knowledge per se if they are simply enamored with the multitude of their library, I use my contentment as motivation to study and safeguard whatever information I can recollect. Perhaps the native Spaniard was right, but only time will tell.

To the part we have all been awaiting - who has influenced me personally and textually, and whose works I cherish and recommend so early on in my literary career. I will try to be terse, but brevity has never been my strong suit. Here is a tentative list: George Orwell, George Eliot, H.P Lovecraft, Saul Bellow, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Christopher Hitchens, Marcel Proust, and Honoré de Balzac. I will attempt to provide short explanations for a few of them. 

George Orwell was an unbelievably honorable man of average education. He fought in the Spanish Civil War for a leftist army and was even shot in the throat; after which he wrote Homage to Catalonia. Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier has been my first in-depth encounter with him since the prolific 1984, and gives a detailed, sympathetic, and culturally humorous account of the tragic squalor and living conditions in which the working class of England subsisted in the mid twentieth century. His travels, experiences, and records remind me of my fortune and incense me to be just as bold and courageous as he was. I cannot wait to read Coming up for Air, A Clergyman's Daughter, Burmese Says, Shooting an Elephant, and anything else he has ever put to paper. 

George Eliot's Middlemarch is a work through which I am still ploughing, and with which I often have difficulty. This is exactly why (aside from the literary beauty and profundity) I appreciate her work. It is a constant reminder to maintain humility (almost to the point of ceaseless self-deprecation and insult) and a source of authentic feminism in fictional form. As Virginia Woolf stated "(Middlemarch) is the first novel written for adults." She also pushes at an open door for me with characters like Casaubon, and his propensity toward a classical education. Chronicling the journey of one Ms. Dorothy Brooke and her suitors, her impertinent sister Cecilia, and the rest of the Middlemarch town, it is a true exhibition of genius with an alluring female protagonist. Silas Marner, Daniel Deronda, and The Mill on the Floss are next on the docket. 

H.P Lovecraft is very special to me. I have never been a very big fan of horror or even thriller type movies, let alone books. I own two anthologies of his short stories that never fail to stimulate thought and, at the very least, anxious apprehension. Alright, I'll drop the macho act. Within 12-15 pages his words percolate my mind, spark insecurity, and fulminate paranoia - a night owl's kryptonite. The Temple had me a little on edge the other night, with a crude account of a calculating and cold Nazi submariner. Each one of his comrades consecutively fall into a maudlin and then schizophrenic stupor over an ivory image taken from an enemy captive. Forced to murder some of his men (some commit suicide), he plunges into the deepest fathoms of the ocean with dwindling power and supplies. He encounters a derelict underwater city, comprised of fanes, friezes, and ornate architecture. He spies the same ivory image, just before he himself succumbs to madness and hysteria. All the while recording this message in a vessel, hopefully to be retrieved one day. As you can see, time of day is key with his stuff. 

Christopher Hitchens is by definition the most influential and paradigm shifting writer for me. He did not write fiction, for as he said "I could not move people in that way."  He also is much younger than any of the aforementioned scribes, having just passed in December of 2011. I try my best not to have heroes or heroines, but it is difficult to resist the charm and eloquence of this well-read former-Trotskyist polemic journalist. Anything I attempt to write to describe his valor, intellect, integrity, or enlightenment would be a miserable failure. In fact, it may be an injustice and do anyone who reads this a disservice. He has had an enormous impact on my personal development and growth (despite being deceased) and redefined the term "independent thinker". Hopefully that doesn't sound too grovelling or smarmy, it's simply sincerity and honesty. His command of the English language, knowledge of history and literature in multiple humanities disciplines (politics, economics, language, religion, philosophy etc.) and charisma blow any reader away. There isn't a page, word, interview, or statement that he utters where I don't learn a new term or fact. To conclude, his writing is too captivating and entrancing to really be considered a read, it is best described as a revelation. A term which he would ironically contemn. 

There you have it, a brief synopsis of my top-tier scribblers. I'd imagine this is subject to change with time, but I certainly hope that progression won't lead to abandonment. 

Yours truly, a primate who couldn't lace these writer's jockstraps.