Favourite writers, continued – Poets.

31. William Blake, largely for Jerusalem

32. T.S. Eliot. When I studied Eliot in 6th form I was either told, or believed independently, that Eliot was impenetrably hard. Not surprisingly I found him thus. Returning to Prufrock or the Wasteland decades later something has happened, and they have become accessible, almost conversational. I find it hard to explain this transformation except to suggest that it is more complicated than just me being a bit slow aged 17.

33. John Keats. Rich, sumptuous poetry. All the more extraordinary that he produced this body of work in such a few short years.

34. Wilfred Owen – I am not in a position to argue this in any detail, but I have a suspicion that Owen wasn’t just our greatest war poet, but one of our greatest poets full stop. His works are compressed, intense, masterpieces, where every sound and syllable counts.

35. Shelley, for Masque of Anarchy, a brilliant piece of polemic which opens with this fantastic line about the Home Secretary, whom he accuses of responsibility for the Peterloo massacre:

“I met Murder on the way – He had a mask like Castlereagh”

And ends with this rousing call to arms:
“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few”
Which would make a great slogan for the Labour Party don’t you think?

I also have a soft spot for Ozymandias:

36. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for Sonnet from the Portugese.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

37. Kipling, for If. Nationalistic, misogynistic nonsense I know, but can’t help loving it.

38. Rupert Brooke, for Granchester. The section on the women of Cambridgeshire is hilarious.

39. John Herrick. Obscure Elizabethan poet, but some great love poems,

40. Brian Patten. Witty, warm and wise.

“I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.
On the journey I thought of you.”

Honourable mention to John Cooper Clarke for Evidently Chickentown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGWhjojt5dw.

Having reviewed this list I can’t avoid the suspicion I have favourite poems rather than favourite poets. So be it.

More favourite writers – playwrights this time.

21. Tom Stoppard – for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, some delightful playing with ideas.

22. Samuel Beckett. When Waiting for Godot was first performed in the 1950’s it left most audiences bewildered. It is a sign of the times that there can now be a passing reference to “Happy Days” (the one with the old people in the dustbins) in the Simpsons, and the writers assume that a good proportion of people (if not kids) will get it.

23. John Osborne. I fear “Look Back in Anger” would feel a bit dated now, no matter how it is staged – it is just one of those pieces specific to the post-War, post rationing 1950s. Maybe it would work in Keep Calm and Carry On austerity Britain, but I suspect not. Plenty of other decent work such as the Entertainer to justify inclusion.
24. Joe Orton. Full of wit, energy, and mischief. Favourite play – got to be “Loot”, or “What the Butler Saw”. His diaries and biography (“Prick up your Ears”) are worth reading too.

25. Oscar Wilde. No-one can turn a phrase like Wilde.

26. Harold Pinter. Some extraordinary powerful work, exploring the mundane and banal; the dramatist who rescued silence. Favourite play – The Homecoming – intense, dramatic, incredibly subtle.

27. Noel Coward. A surprise inclusion maybe, but try Blithe Spirit.

28. George Bernard Shaw. Shaw explored some issues that most playwrights of his generation steered well away from. Now we think of Pygmalion and “I’m a good girl I am”, but of course Shaw didn’t marry off Eliza and Professor ‘iggins.

29. Alan Ayckbourn, for “The Norman Conquests”. Farce when well done is brilliant, but really complex to pull off, and in this sequence of plays Ayckbourn does it effortlessly.

30 Ben Jonson. Shakespeare’s contemporary; far fewer of his works have survived, (or did he just write less?) but there is enough to show us how extraordinary the theatre of this time must have been.

A very white, male, English (the language rather than the country, of course) list, admittedly. But it would be fairly pointless claiming admiration for writers whose work I am less familiar with.

11. Douglas Adams. I first encountered Douglas Adams’ work on the radio, which is probably where it worked best. This must have been the late 70’s I guess. I can still remember the time and place, (if not the date). The books are a joy – try the Dirk Gently series as well.

12. Tolkien. Teenage fiction perhaps, but captivating stuff. Outside the LoTR and the Hobbit, pretty unreadable. I have a sneaking suspicion that the films were better than the books, but it’s been a while since I read the latter.

13. C.S.Lewis. Going back even further into my childhood now, but as an eight/nine year-old I found the Narnia series entrancing and magical. The Last Battle is a travesty of epic proportion, but forgivable as long as I don’t ever have to read it to my kids!

14. Eoin Colfer. The Artemis Fowl series is for late pre-teens, and is very inventive, with some nicely dark stuff in there as well. Make sure you read them in the right order!

15. Terry Pratchett. DiscWorld is an as well realised a creation as any other on this list.

16. JK Rowling. What JKR does is so deceptively simple – when I first read HP and the Philosopher’s Stone I thought “I could do that” – but by the end of the series I was utterly hooked. It was great fun being part of the journey as well, and a fairly unique experience (yes, I know you can’t qualify an absolute, but you know what I mean) – no-one will ever read the Deathly Hallows again wondering if JKR would have the audacity to kill off her main character, as seemed inevitable at more than one point. No-one will ever do the midnight queue for the next instalment (unless Shades of Grey continues to sell in the way it has over the last few weeks)

17. Roald Dahl. Pre-teen again – inevitably I guess given the topic. I am sure there is some adult sci-fi/fantasy out there but I just haven’t read it yet. Any recommendations? Some slightly more grown-up writers are…

18. Kurt Vonnegut, for Slaughterhouse 5.

19. Max Brooks – for World War Z. Zombie fiction can be very repetitive, but Brooks’ use of fractured first person statements works very effectively.

20. Jasper Fforde – especially the Thursday Next books.

As this will be my 50th blog entry, I thought I would succumb to some list writing – in this case my 50 favourite authors. Now I haven’t prepared this list in advance, although I have of course given it some thought, so who knows if I will get to 50?

1. Shakespeare. Of course.
2. Stella Gibbons – see earlier blogs for some fan mail.
3. Mervyn Peake, the stunningly brilliant author of the Gormenghast trilogy
4. George Orwell. Never wrote an uninteresting word. If you have read 1984 and Animal Farm, and chances are you have, try the essays or journalism, or even the much under-appreciated (including by GO himself) minor novels such as Burmese Days, Coming Up for Air, or Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
5. Raymond Chandler – see blog entry 49.
6. Anthony Burgess – best known for Clockwork Orange, but I have a real soft spot for the Enderby novels – really funny. There is a scene where Enderby, the poet, cooks spaghetti carbonara badly – doesn’t sound funny I know but try it.
7. Kingsley Amis – 95% of which is for Lucky Jim of course.
8. Evelyn Waugh – try “The Loved Ones”.
9. Jane Austen – an author you are supposed to like, but I wonder how many people just make do with the TV adaptations? But I genuinely believe she is better on the page, where the subtlety can emerge at it own speed.
10. Charles Dickens – I have read all the principal novels many moons ago, but there is so much more to explore.

Ten is enough for now – if I had just these authors and no more I think I could probably rest happy for many years. But ten more tomorrow.

DJJ