writing

My first was an imitation of robinson cursoe.

are ya daft, man? da radia has more relivance. Alls ya gotta do is get out and aboot ta see it.

seriously, writers these days are picked from artists, not action heros.
it was once 'write what you know; (ie have done)
I myself used write what you love.

and today, writers are picked from paint me a nice picture. Can-west recruiting for it's twit feeds might consider that.

(given the newspapers recent habit of getting dinged for fraud ( toronto, globe etc. Paint me the story types aren't very reality based, apparently)

if I was imitating these days, it'd be holt or prachette.

packrat

Could I add

Gravity's Rainbow - by Pynchon

Irvine Welsh and Trainspotting

It's so much fun to try but all too easy to fail at presenting strong accents in print.

Mimicry

I understand your point, but I completely disagree with your conclusion that we should just not read certain books. The key is to read a vast array of books. Every writer practices mimicry at least a little. The wider variety of books the better. Even poorly written books, full of drivel, teach you what not to do when writing a book. The lesson that a young and inspiring writer should be learning is to expand their horizons not limit them. You don't do them any favors with this article. But I know what you are doing. Its the oldest trick in the book--a bit cliche I must say. Maximize controversy, maximize exposure. I certainly would never have heard of you if a Facebook friend had not posted a link to your article in disgust. The trouble with this method is you aren't really maximizing your contribution.

I meant...

young and *aspiring* writer. LOL I haven't had breakfast yet.

Gonzo begone!

I'm with Steve. Any writer who refers to himself (and I use the masculine form deliberately) as "gonzo" should be shunned by society. And anyone who thinks the kind of lifestyle Hunter S. Thompson enjoyed will contribute to a brilliant artistic career would do well to remember how Dr. Duke's career ended.

Critique of reasons

People write different things for different purposes.

The Rand books, Atlas Shrugged and the other one too, really ought to be tried for crimes against humanity, but Hemingway is just too cute to hate.

GWests criticism of Gravity's Rainbow is well taken but too broad. One would have to do separate considerations of any given 3 or 400 page segments, of which there could be many. You should try "The Crying of Lot 49". Much better written, same theme, several thousand paragraphs shorter.

I personally think Walt Disney's rendition of Sleeping Beauty has done the most damage to Western culture.

Can't Believe I'm Typing This, But....

...I actually agree with Mr. Burgess way at the top of the thread on this one......

Case in point, one Mr. Hunter S. Thompson, who is the kinghell Kong-sized avatar perched on the sagging shoulders of just about every Blogger who ever lived who wishes he could bang out the next Fear & Loathing in a wild Turkey-induced haze while pounding away on a huge, lightning quick 5000 watt Selectric as the surf pounds just outside the Seal Rock Inn's windows while the blazing sun sets on the depravity that is the dying American Empire out on the edge of the Avenues......

________________
Aw geez.....

I did it again?

Sheesh.

.

Seriously?

You're seriously going to condemn Blood Meridian? If you don't like it, don't read it. But leave it for others to ejoy. You have a sort of 'power' here, in this place. Don't abuse it by trying to marginalize writers who are out of your league. Also, I have a hard time taking your criticisms seriously based solely on the books you've mentioned and what made you choose them. I shook my head at your reasoning. Essentially, what you're saying is this "Kids, don't bother, you're just too stupid to do anything successful and will only hurt yourselves if you try." Read everything, it is only through experience that we can define ourselves. Someone posted a comment that said "it was once 'write what you know'". I disagree. It will always be "write what you want".

Duke's career ending...

This topic is completely subjective much like which artists aspiring musicians should not listen to. B.S.
Really???

It's well known that Thompson often mentioned that he and he alone would be the author of his own demise and on his terms. To paraphrase his suicide note, "...don't be greedy."

The contributions he made to writing are much more valid than most authors could hope to achieve. Who cares about literary theory? Much like who cares about music theory in music. Who cares about his lifstyle? as opposed to the more desirable 96% of peoples homogenized time wasting called a "life".

The best books, music, and art have ALWAYS been created by those willing eschew tradition and throw acceptable societal convention in to the toilet where it belongs while rubbing its collective nose firmly in it's own excrement...and again this is, well, subjective.

It resonates or it doesn't. The more life experience the more the standards do not apply nor resonate.

Bought the ticket and somehow, still on the ride....

Blood Meridian? Really...?

Hemingway and Salinger I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt, purely on stylistic bases. Atlas Shrugged as work of fiction, though perhaps not political philosophy, though even there it probably most clearly articulates the value of economic libertarianism. Which you don't agree with, fine, but the novel itself did a good job with the subject matter.

But Blood Meridian? Really? Maybe people don't want to read about the nightmarish, putrid settlement of the southwest, but in terms of sheer power and scenes that shake you to the core, characters that haunt your sense of calm (the Judge!)... there's nothing that can compare.

I'm sorry, sir. Poorly played indeed.

lemonheart

The point here is not to criticize the writers--mine wasn't at least. Like many I idolized Thompson and consider him one of the true greats. The point is that it's a mistake to imitate him, and many, many writers have tried.

Steve

Couldn't agree more!

Rand is just a phase

You can't stop late teenage boys from reading Ayn Rand, I'm afraid: thankfully, most will outgrow it.

oh say can you see

There's no Canadians in this list because,

1) There are no bad Canadian writers?

2) There are no Canadian writers worth reading?

3) There are no Canadian writers?

4) There are no Canadians?

5) we believe many people in New York are "hungry for news and comment that reflects their actual lives, their own values."

6) There is nothing more Canadian than fawning
over things American?

Pretending to be On the Road

I can think of no other book on the list more deserving than Kerouac's On the Road. This book not only convinced writers they could write a novel in one sitting under an amphetamine trance, but worse, it convinced an entire generation of non-writers that they, too, could write. All the painfully bad manuscripts rejected by many a publisher thereafter must have sent countless editors to the nuthouse, or to alcoholism. Even the master poet songwriter, Bob Dylan, felt he could pull off his version, yet "Tarantula" remains one of the worst imitations in all of modern literature.

Just go to any open mike poetry reading or literary festival to see the unfortunate legacy of Kerouac's free verse, spontaneous prose. Of course, none of this afterbirth taints the original. On the Road is a masterpiece precisely because it was not an imitation, and because it was written by a writer who knew exactly which rules he was breaking and re-arranging.

I'd like to add Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer to this list. Think of all the future smut, porn and erotica 'novelists' who really felt they had a chance of duplicating genius.

Yes, to what Burgess said.

Economic libertarianism my sweet departed Aunt Fanny

What Ayn Rand was espousing was the ultimate expression of the eugenics movement. The thesis is that nobility is caused by competence, and the measure of competence is the amount of money you control.

No-one without money to afford life deserves to live.

The characters are Soviet-style heroes of the Revolution, just like in those amazing noble-worker posters, square-jawed and iron willed.

This is the danger we are discussing. We meet characters who are personifications of something; an idea, a belief, a philosophy. If we like or admire the character, we are hard wired to accept the premise, however flawed.

It's a kind or conditioning or suggestibility. We all have it, sort of. Some people are resistant, but even they tend to fall on the spectrum from for to against, just in a different position.

The problem with the Rand books is that the whole premise was bullshit. Most money, in larger amounts anyway, is stolen. Who was it said that all great fortunes are based on great crimes: the greater the fortune, the greater the crime?

The great fortunes of our world are made by smuggling contraband created by corrupting authorities to control competition and create artificial scarcity. This is the thing that caused her to flee Russia in the first place, but her novels, her very influential novels give no weight to evil money at all.

And also give no weight to the absolutely obvious fact that at any given time at least 60% of humans have no hope of controlling enough money to live. So if we accept her premise, we must allow all infants and children, all elders who spent their lives to support others, all victims of oppression of all types, all disabled people, to just starve to death.

toquer is correct that we can't stop teenage boys from reading this dangerous nonsense, but I don't think they do outgrow it. I really don't.

Actually Bailey

I've read 'em all...I think everybody should...................

But, given the terms of reference: "Any young person who wants to be a novelist should of course be a reader as well. But some novels can be more hazard than inspiration."...and so, I think Pynchon is the kind of author whose stuff tends to tie young 'writers' up in knots.

I can't imagine anyone emulating Any Rand's pedantic and leaden writing style though and while I probably re-read more Orwell than any other writer, I'd never suggest his novels are great 'literature'.

In fact, I can think of many folks for whom Rand has been an 'inspiration' - but even those people, I'd wager, aren't great fans of her prose style...

As for Canadian authors...Can't think of any I'd suggest young writers 'avoid' for fear of stylistic contamination - which is what we're really talking about isn't it?

I can think of one I'd recommend for anybody though: Alistair MacLeod.

And, finally, I agree with you about Rand - she's done an incredible amount of harm DESPITE her turgid lifeless prose. Funny though, I've always thought of her as more of a women's author.

Most women are smarter than that

I don't know. The characters are very "Harlequin romance" One sided, and shallow. They seem designed to evoke an emotional response, and women do like that, but...

While women enjoy reading these types of characterizations, they rarely act in a way that makes one think they expect real life to actually BE like that. I make an exception of the Sleeping Beauty story, which is much more insidious in it's play upon women's belief systems.

I never met one who, for example, expected me to secretly be much richer than I appear to be, or more attractive. I have been resented for not being Prince Charming however.

My experience might not be representative.

Women have the keeping of the world in their care. They bear and rear children, for instance, and that in itself requires a contact with reality that most men never have to face absolutely.

Males on the other hand, are capable of living whole lives, successful lives, completely predicated on stupid fictions.

I mean, I'm aware that I'm generalizing, and that examples of both ends of any generalization can be represented at the other end. There are many men who deal regularly with actuality, as there are many women who live fictional lives as well. But I make the point that men are more likely to be sucked in by this kind of imaginary value system.

books to puke over

Rand's The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, etc. were full of male-type fantasy love-rape scenes, and anti-unionism and anti-environmental crap. But she's still a good writer. You may to hang her after you read her stuff, but she holds your attention. Hemingway would have done the world and wildlife a big service if he'd shot himself first before he ever set pen to paper. Too many writers have picked up his depressing style. After you read one of his clipped novels, you are ready to shoot yourself, too. Tolkien's books are for those who never read any fairy tales when they were kids. Yes, we have TONS of bad Canadian writers. Most of the really bad ones win prizes (as did Carole' Shield's "Stone Diaries," a great book for insomniacs). Thomas B. Costain's "Tontine," Farley Mowat's "Never Cry Wolf", Margaret Craven's "I Heard the Owl Call my Name," some of Gabrielle Roy's books and anything by Stephen Leacock are examples of good Canadian fiction writing. Too many judges of literature seem to evaluate writers by the floweriness of their words. Nothing could bore me more. I like a STORY--and some action, drama, suspense, intrigue and resolutions (or a surprise ending). Pretty writing belongs in poetry, IMHO;)

Useful knowledge

I appreciate Mr. Killian's list because I am one of the great unwashed, spending my time in pursuit of the almighty dollar, thus limited in leisure opportunities and exposed to anxiety and grief that I might be thought a wastrel after unknowingly stumbling into choices that literary savants consider not worthy of unabbreviated veneration.

Debilitated by daily toil and study, I need to be refreshed and inspired by prose so it will be a dark and stormy night before I expose myself to possibility of being one more scarred victim of unworthy compositions as those enumerated by the learned persons gathered here.

Clearly, the pen is mightier than the sword and each of us must beware of its obtuse meanderings. Life truly is a mortally dangersome journey that inevitably ends in death. Reading turgid novels only seems to slow passage of time and delay the ultimate moment when we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Rand a 'good' writer??

Have to disagree with you on that score.

Her prose is lifeless, her characters little better than cardboard cutouts and her plots are as transparent as tissue paper.

As for Hemingway, I have to protest pretty loudly on that score too.

Shoot Rand with my blessings; preferably before she teams up with her Canadian avatar and sometime lover Nathaniel Blumenthal - and you'd have eliminated the 'philosophy' behind Allan Greenspan and what American CEOs cite as their most important 'literary' influence.

But Hemingway is and was an important stylist in the English language - in my view.

He'd be missed.

But then, most art is a matter of taste - and taste varies....

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand's "style" was already overt plagiarism of Soviet realism. Both are Manichean: where Soviet realism elevates the worker and denigrates the capitalist, Ayn Rand elevates the capitalist and denigrates the workers. But everything else is the same: Good characters are angular and strong (as are good objects); bad characters (and objects) are soft and effeminate. Good desire is for progress; bad desire is for things to stay the same. Etc.

Good word!

arg11; I think I like Manichean, in this use. A very good insight, especially given that Rand established Objectivism based on her literary style, and that became a sort of atheistic religion quite quickly. Unless you regard money as an actual deity in itself.

I think I disagree that she was a plagiarist, though. Ayn Rand was a genuine Soviet. She came quite honestly by her fervour.

The great irony of it all, Alan Greenspan especially, is that she succeeded in converting almost all Capitalists, maybe even Capitalism en toto into a Soviet style collectivism, which became framed in corporate shareholding conventions.

Once corporate collectives were granted legal person-hood, they rewrote the ethical and moral imperatives of Western culture wholesale, and successfully established themselves as the only legitimate governing force by widespread propagandistic campaigns. Not to mention large bribes and donations.

I don't know if legislators or propagandists qualify as writers by Mr. Killian's standards, but certainly Rand influenced them, and they transformed passionately anti-Soviet western cultures into Soviet style collectivist cultures.

So clearly she is dangerous to read.

Ayn Rand ...

gives me the heebee jeebies. Isn't she a sort of L. Ron Hubbard for the acquisitive set?

Canadian Writer to not emulate

The one that I have to be conscious of is Douglas Coupland. His use of pop culture and the sort of jaded cynicism of his characters. And he's made it hard to write a story set in Vancouver, because he's described so well.

you have to eat everything

,including poisons, if you want to be a real cook.

Beautifully written, kudos.

Beautifully written, kudos. But you seem very hard on yourself for what sounds, after all, like normal adult development.

And for that matter, at least we were reading books and getting infatuated with writing. I don't think most young people are reading much at all.

It's about the writing

Why all the politics? He's writing about writing: Rand: don't be pedantic and long winded, Salinger: cool & hip vernacular does not last, Hemingway - spare sentences with uninformed politics, Tolkien - ornate fantasy that is imitated, often poorly, perhaps more than any of these and so on. Imagine a new writer submitting something written in the style of Blood Meridian or The Road - trashed immediately. That's the point here.

People still read Ayn Rand?

Seriously?

If you want to find out which writers inspire other writers, look up fanfiction. About the only one on your list which most writers try to emulate is Tolkein. For the most part, it's writers like JK Rowling, Neil Gaimon, and Stephanie Meyer*.

*Mention of the author's name by no means implies an endorsement of the author's product.

Novels

Canadians (who can't write) shouldn't criticize writers are / have been successful. And of course you have Ayn Rand on this list, not because you think she can't write, but because - like so many Canadians - you are a socialist. Before you learn how to write, you need to learn how to think. Quit following the crowd, or at least your crowd. They aren't very bright.

Rand?

wasn't Mein Kampf a million seller too?

Crawford

While some off your pals were whooping it up at Pacific Ocean Park, were you intrigued by Our Man in Havana?

I think it's about writers who influence future writers

You're right, it's too much politics, but somehow it seems like writing is the most influential thing on civilized humanity. Killian is talking about novels, but not all writers are novelists.

People write very influential things that aren't intended to be fiction at all, and those people also read novels, and they can be influenced by the experience, just like other writers can.

They write sermons, for example, which influence people's beliefs about right and wrong. They write laws, and legal opinions and judgements, which influence both individuals and society profoundly.

So what if a novel influences a whole generation of writers of things other than other novels? I've heard it argued that Harriet Beacher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a main cause of the American war between the states, which killed hundreds of thousands outright and changed the history of the world in it's views of human rights.

I know the main idea stated was that exposure to bad technique will screw up one's ability to write a decent sentence of one's own, but when you consider the kinds of badness a sentence might have, the question becomes rather larger than just one of style.

@ Mr. Hawthorne -

1.Ayn Rand is indefensible as a writer.

Period.

2. As a human being she was a moral disaster, a sexual predator and someone with execrable manners and deplorable personal habits; even Ronald Reagan refused to invite her to the White House when he was the President.

3. As the ostensible founder of a particular 'philosophy' she is on a par with other bad writers: L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith. And she wasn't much of a thinker either.

Do you call that winning the literary Trifecta?

As for judging the writing skill and output of anonymous contributors to a news site on the basis of a few hundred words?

I expect you probably regretted that little 'pearl of wisdom' as soon as you penned it.

Not to worry - you're as anonymous (and as entitled to your opinions) as the rest of us.

And you're right Bailey, with Rand it is much more than a question of style; you too Takuan, the Hitler as a writer comparison is particularly apt - given the relative levels of damage each of them did (and continues to do) to human beings and societies.

Canada

Alright please. As a Canadian, who lives in the US, I just had to say to Mr. Hawthorn, who commented above, give me a break! Only the most ignorant of Americans cry Socialism every time a Canadian even farts the wrong way. I happen to disagree with Mr. Killian and I sure as "H.E. Double-Hockey-Sticks" am not a Capitalist! So where does that leave your argument? Not only that but America isn't exactly free of Socialism either--you have public parks, public libraries and public schools to name a few socialist programs going on within your borders. I have several American friends, and so I have learned that not all Americans are like you. Have a little dignity while representing your country, eh.

INTERVIEWER You have said

INTERVIEWER You have said that you don’t believe in going to college to learn to write. Why is that?

BRADBURY It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices…

(Ray Bradbury in Paris Review, quoted recently in Harpers)

G West said:

And that's putting it mildly. Seriously, it is. She was something of a monster of the first order.

It absolutely baffles me when I observe otherwise highly intelligent people who believe Rand had anything whatsoever to offer the world.

curious

Isn't immitation of style born from not yet knowing your own voice? Unless you're after the next million copy seller, which might well be a flawed pinnacle.

The line between fiction and non-fiction is often smeared. Marshall McLuhan peeves me greatly, still.
For balance, I love the Canadian writer Yves Thériault. How could Agaguk be immitated?

non-fictional fiction & vice-versa

Wasn't most of Kerouac's "fiction" in fact non-fiction, as in autobiography?
And Hunter S. Thompson. I suspect his "non-fiction" "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" has added fictional imaginings to a degree greater than Kerouac's supposed fiction!

Read more, it's good for your sense of humour ...

Hear! Hear! on adding Hunter to the list. Not that I don't love the guy, but I've met too many young journalists (and a couple old ones too) who are convinced they can do it all over again. The drugs, the irreverence, the getting wasted and then pounding out a half-concocted story for a sports magazine in Des Moines 10 minutes before deadline. Sorry gang, but that train has sailed. Start a blog if you want to do that ... don't be surprised if no one reads it though.
And may I add ... Vonnegut. Fabulous stories. Incredible imagination; too incredible to be mimicked.
And to all those who missed the fact that this article is supposed to be humorous and not a list of books to be banned, may I suggest a little Stephen Leacock?

Ridiculous conceit

This article is ridiculous in a most insulting way. Aspiring writers should read all these books, much better ones, much worse ones, and imitate all of them as they see fit on the way to developing a style.

Sorry you don't like these classic pieces of literature (and yes, your descriptions are right on) but to say they're "harmful" is harmful in and of itself, for so many reasons. Not to mention silly.

Tom Robbins

I found his books to be a waste of time. I'm not sure he's been widely emulated by aspiring writers, but I encountered the most bizarre event sometime after the novel came out. This was in 1985, and a guy read Still Life with a Woodpecker, and was inspired to motor over to a big tidal boulder on the Gulf of Alaska (from the fish processor where he was working onboard), whereupon he painted with non-removable oil paint in 2-ft. letters, "Welcome Back Woodpecker," for his wife, who would be returning to the processor sometime in the next days.

That's enough of a turnoff for me to throw away any of his books in my vicinity.

learning from the masters

As an art student, I was taught that the best visual artists sought to copy the styles of the masters - not to end up imitating their approach, but to learn from the various techniques, subject matter, colour choices, composition and all the things that artistic geniouses employed to bring their work to life. Only at the end of this method of study would we be qualified to begin to develop our own artistic gifts. I would apply this same theory to writing. Learn from the masters and become your own unique artist.

10 Writers too bad to imitate

As enthusiastic as I was to run out and embrace the Generation X authors work after hearing countless spotless reviews of his novels, I found I could just not become enamored, enwrapped; enveloped, intrigued enough to continue reading.

I tend now to think though sir Douglas Copeland was eerily prescient in his pre-internet age writing because the style is similar in tone likened to reams of message board postings we see today.:)

I just found it a little choppy for my taste. Like pebbles that make tiny rollicking noises tumbling down a rock face threatening for an avalanche that never arrives. Ok, bad metaphors anyone Im bad.

Writers respond

Crawford: You've started something good, something I've been looking for. Could you/we please make a habit of it? Please?

Many thanks
Janet

....not just a box of Cheerios

A good writer will even read a cereal box with a certain curious relish.

Aha

A good writer will also read a relish bottle with a certain curious cheer.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

/hangs head in shameful punishment

Oooh....

Cutting the mustard

Well done, Mr. Greg.

Read before you write

I find the commentary belittling this article on the basis that it somehow directs individuals away from reading ironic. If you value reading then you should have read the preface carefully to understand that the writer is sarcastically advising young writers away from these novels only because the by-product of these young writers tends to be a poor imitation of the listed readings.