The blog of The Top Ten author J. Peder Zane.
Allan Gurganus on Reading & Writing
Thursday, March 1, 2007
We had a terrific event with Allan Gurganus last night at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, N.C.
After I spoke, Allan said he didn’t completely accept my assertion that all good writers are great readers. He said he knows many writers who don’t seem to read much and then quoted Lee Smith, who once observed of a colleague: I believe he’s written more books than he’s read.
Allan added: Reading is inhaling; writing is exhaling. Anyone who exhales without inhaling is just releasing pure carbon monoxide that is hardly worth your time and may very well kill you.
One of my aims with “The Top Ten” was to cast writers as readers - to reveal the idolatrous fan that resides in each of their breasts. Allan did not disappoint, reading with awe and elan from the works that made his Top Ten list. He began with “Robinson Crusoe,” which, he said, he discovered as a fifth grader. This led to trouble when he tried to hide Defoe’s massive novel behind his small math book. His teacher was not amused. Nor was the Principal when he took the phone from the hand of little Allan — who was supposed to be confessing his crime to his father — and heard: “At the tone, the time will be 1:15 p.m. and 20 seconds.”
Allan also read from “Speak, Memory,” “A Death in the Family,” “Emma” and “Middlemarch.” The crowd was mesmerized as he articulated the thickly textured opening of the second chapter of “Absalom, Absalom!” — get it now and read it aloud (Allan likened its cadences to the King James Bible).
Finally, he brought the house down when he read - in different voices - the interview between Lady Bracknell and Jack from Act I of “The Importance of Being Earnest”:
LADY BRACKNELL : [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?
JACK: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.
LADY BRACKNELL: I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?
JACK: Twenty-nine.
LADY BRACKNELL: A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?
JACK: [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.
LADY BRACKNELL: I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?
JACK: Between seven and eight thousand a year.
LADY BRACKNELL: [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments?
JACK: In investments, chiefly.
LADY BRACKNELL: That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.
Posted by J. Peder Zane at 8:30 AM
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I certainly would've loved to hear the bit from Absalom, Absalom!--as well as the rest. But Faulkner always wins.
"Absalom, Absalom!" is number one on my Top Ten and it was hard to keep "Light in August" and "The Sound and the Fury" off the list.
I also love "Sancutary" - remember when he says Popeye has "that vicious depth- less quality of stamped tin" - and "Pylon," which I remember as an orgy of similes (have to revisit that one soon).
Just about all of Faulkner makes me want to weep. The breadth of him I can't even describe. I don't think we have enough superlatives and descriptives in the language to cover William Faulkner.
Absalom is wonderful, and I recommend it always to those who say "I can't read The Sound and the Fury!" Read Absalom first and you'll have a much easier time of it.