For the Number 3 selection of my Top Ten List, I want to focus not on a single book, but rather on two authors. Those two authors are: Wendell Berry and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Wendell Berry
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I chose these two authors because to me, they are two examples of both why we read and why some try to write. Few, if any writers, do it better than they. Both writers allow you to leave reality while reading and partcipate in the worlds they create with words. Both writers couldn't be any more different. They both live (ed) completely different lives and write about really different things. However, to me, they both write about one thing: Memory.
Wendell Berry has written more than 40 works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He is a loud voice among the conservationalists in this country and abroad. However, to me, they (the conservationalist) do not really understand him nor do they understand what he writes about. I have only read somewhere between 6-7 of his works, but to me, they were all so very insightful and captivating. I am not a Wendell Berry expert in any way, shape, or form, but it seems that Mr. Berry is trying to write about one very important concept and that is: Affection. I believe that all of his writing, or at least, what I have read can be traced back to this concept. And as a bystander who loves being outside and in Nature, this is not what the conservationlists are screaming or pushing.
This affection that I think Mr. Berry writes so well about is something that exists on a much higher level than what he is actually writing about whether it be a poem, a short story, a novel, or an essay. This is the very meaning of affection. It is not mushy or romantic because both of those two feelings get old. It is not idealistic or rash because they get old and calluoused as well. It is a deep, deep love for a place. And that love of place is home in every good sense of the word. It is about doing good to the people in your home. It is about doing good to the land that is your home. It is about doing good to the community that surrounds your home. And the whole reason you are doing all this good is because you love it. You care for it. It is not easy because true love is all choice and little feeling.
You can read this affection in his rage-filled poems or essays about land waste, politics, progress, crime, etc. You can read this in his wonderful short stories and novels about the fictional Port William townspeople and community. You can read this in every word that he has written. He has an Affection for his wife. He has Affection for the land he lives on and farms. He has Affection for the people who populate his community and country. He has Affection for God. And to be honest, he does not tolerate anyone or anything that does not have this Affection. He hates it and will not tolerate it.
To me, Wendell Berry is the finest living author. No one writes better. I know this is an extreme statement, but if you know me, I have a bad habit of these. I can't help it. They just come out. I am not well-read, so I may be missing something, but I will tell you of the author when I come upon him or her. I am sure it will be a while.
My favorite Wendell Berry selections are:
- Hannah Coulter--the opening chapter of this book is the finest writing that I have had the priviledge to read in a very long time.
- Jayber Crow-novels
- What Are People For?-essays
The other author that claims the Number 3 spot is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Everyone has heard of him. Everyone has read the Great Gatsby. Most hated it because their English teachers spent too much time talking about Fitzgerald's lifestyle and no time talking about the genius it would take to write a book that is still a bestseller 75 years after it was written. And no time talking about how the small book defines the sense of longing filled with delusions of granduer that America is still feeling 60+ years after WWI and WWII. In my humble opinion, no writer that lived during the time that Fitzgerald lived wrote better than he did. Yes, he was an alcoholic. Yes, he squandered some of his talent. Yes, he partied a lot. Yes, he was always in debt and had to write for popular magazines in order to live an extravagant lifestyle, but when you can look past all of this and only look at the facet that I am talking about, the writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald, then you can see that no one wrote better. Better than Hemingway. Better than Dos Passos. Better than Wolfe. Better than a slough of other names. I know there will be some disagreement and I am biased. (Very)
The author and essayist John O'Hara said that matching every American author word against word, no one rivals F. Scott Fitzgerald. No one. I agree and will again say I am biased. Fitzgerald write 160 short stories, 4.5 novels, numerous reviews, numerous essays, one travel book, one Broadway play, and worked on movie scripts in Hollywood. No, he did not win the Pulitzer or the Nobel Prize for literature. No, he did not use all of his talents wisely. But when you look at his short stories or his novels many of them are lacking, but most of them could be lessons in writing and how to write. They are studies in character, emotions, and plot formation. He worked for 11 years on his novel, Tender is the Night. That is not the work or effort of a slack or "slick" writer. If you read his notebooks, you will know that he did not just "throw" stories together. However, this is my list and I do not need to explain why I think that FSF is a great author, I guess. To me, he is not just an author. He is on the next level, he should be called an American Man of Letters.
When you read Ftizgerald, try to not feel the over-arching lonliness. Try not feel the aching for how things should have gone; might have gone. Try not to feel the soul searching and the beauty of the night. Try not to feel as if you are not hurting for the protaganist and wishing to guide them into the right choices, but know it will not come. Try not to find yourself lost among the pages. Try not to laugh. I learned to love Keat because of FSF. If you get a chance listen to FSF read the Keat's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" and try to not feel as if you are not a part of the poem. It is writing in the highest degree to me. It is what reading and writing is for.
My Favorite Fitzgerald Works:
1. The Beautiful and the Damned-novel
2. May Day-short story
3. 10,000 False Starts-essay
"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Still watching the Green Light at the end of the dock,
David
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