Month: July 2007

I often get asked to name literary influences and favorite authors, and I’ve never quite figured out how to answer either question. Everything I read, experience, or witness influences my writing in some way, so it’s difficult to say something neat and predictable, like “My writing owes a debt to X literary movement.” And naming favorite authors is equally difficult because so few writers publish consistently significant books over the years.

One author whose books I often include in my ‘favorites’ list is J.M. Coetzee. I admire the breadth of his work (novels, criticism, translation), and it’s something I aspire to myself. I love his use of language (I don’t know if it’s because he was trained as a linguist (as was I) that I am so sensitive to his choices.) I like that he never forgets that the story should always come first. Each book of his is a reason to celebrate, as far as I’m concerned.

Recently, the New York Review of Books published an excerpt from Coetzee’s new book, Diary of a Bad Year (which will be released in December 2007, according to Amazon). The excerpt is, quite simply, incredible. I can’t wait to get my hands on the novel.

I’ve been enjoying Paper Cuts, the book blog started by the NYT‘s Dwight Garner. It’s varied, it’s well written, and it’s got a point of view. Now it looks like the Chicago Tribune has also joined the blogging world through Trib Books. Nice to see newspapers’ book sections trying to reach readers via this medium instead of sitting back and accusing blogs of stealing their readership/lowering standards/putting them out of business/etc.

I’m finally back home, and have access once again to my laptop and (semi-reliable) Internet connection. Over the last four weeks, Alex and I went to Ifrane, Azrou, Meknes, Fez, Tetuan, Ceuta, Tangier, and villages along the Mediterranean coast. We read books, we saw movies, we took friends to see sights, we bargained over souvenirs (it was generally agreed that I was worse at bargaining than even tourists), we swam in the sea.

And everywhere we went, I was the party pooper. “That beach sounds fantastic,” I’d sigh, “but, really, I should go back to the apartment and edit Chapter 12.” Or “I’ll catch up with you in the medina later, I’ll just rewrite this one scene I have in mind first.” Or “Can we get back on the early side? I have some work to finish?” It went like this for our entire vacation, and although I felt terrible for Alex and our friends, at least I did manage to finish another draft of my novel. Now my plan is to do some fine-tuning before my return to the U.S. in mid-August.