Richard Ford and the Aquarian Writer

Several years ago my friend Stuart decided to read Richard Ford's The Sportswriter on a whim. His whim was that he and Ford share the same birthday, February 16th (my birthday happens to be the next day). Stuart (himself a writer) thought that he might enjoy the writing since he a Ford are both Aquarians. Anyway, Stuart loved the book, thought it was hilarious, and immediately read through Ford's trilogy The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land telling me whenever possible that I should read them too, that I would love them. He was right. I was never able to get into John Updike's Rabbit series or even Philip Roth's Zuckerman series. I tried. I love the idea of a literary serial with a single protagonist whom you grow with, watch change. But, honest to god, I never found Updike's prose captivating in any way. Am I missing something? And Roth...well...I don't know. I should be into Philip Roth. I mean, on paper, it would just seem to make sense: Dark, humorous Jewish author seeks same in reader. Portnoy's Complaint is hilarious no doubt but that's the only novel of his I could finish. You know, I think it's one thing to spend an hour an a half with a neurotic Woody Allen character or a half hour with Larry David, but to spend, what, a dozen hours or more with one of Roth's characters who tend to be a hundred times less likable or accessible than the former? No thanks.

In any case, it was a great relief to find in Ford's Frank Bascombe a serial character that I could really get into. I wonder though - how much does the fact that Ford and I are both Aquarians have to do with me liking/sympathizing his writing? Has anyone ever done an astrological literary study? I can't imagine a study like that would ever be taken too seriously in the academy but who cares? This is a blog, not the University.

Here's a completely unofficial list of Aquarian authors listed in order of birth with a note next to each re: whether I've read them and if I liked them (this is what passes for a scientific study here at Down Around The Sun:

James Joyce, Feb. 2: Vastly overrated. I mean, I understand his historical significance, his innovations within Modern Literature, etc. but I never, never, NEVER think to myself, "Gosh, I really feel like reading some James Joyce right now." Never. And I honestly think that should be relavent criteria for whether or not an author's work is good or attractive rather than just historically significant.

Gertrude Stein, Feb. 3: Now here's a modern experimentalist I can get behind. She's fantastic. There should be more of Gertrude Stein's work plastered around public spaces: on buses, park benches, sky writing, on the ceiling at the dentist's office, you name it, name it, you name it, name it, don't name it, you name it, don't name it, you name it.

J.M. Coetzee, Feb. 5: The best Aquarian writer, in my opinion. Several years ago on my previous stint living in Portland I was single, I was teaching and I had a really stripped down life. I spent my evenings lying in bed doing one of three things: Looking through L.L. Bean catalogs, watching all of David Cronenberg's films and reading all of J.M. Coetzee's books (this is an unbelievably fantastic threesome by the way, I strongly recommend it to the twenty-something bachelor on the verge of depression). Anywho, is there a better contemporary writer than Coetzee? I don't think there is. In my mind he's the Michael Jordan of his generation. He took the torch of "best writer of his generation" from Beckett (whom he wrote his doctoral thesis on) and expanded on Beckett's reductionist vocabulary in the most compelling, intelligent way. His stretch of work from '99-'07: Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man, and Diary of a Bad Year is, I think, unparalleled by any contemporary writer. In fact, can you think of a writer with a better eight year stretch of four novels? When I first read Disgrace I thought it was the best, most engaging novel I'd read since Lolita for the first time. But when I read Elizabeth Costello for the second (and then a third time) I realized that's his best book, and maybe the best novel written in my lifetime (it deserves a post of its own). All I have to say is: what will he do next?



Charles Dickens, Feb. 7: Never read him.

Jules Verne, Feb. 8: Ditto.



Abraham Lincoln, Feb 12: Not a literary author, obviously, but one of the most important writers in the American canon (of course, who knows how much of his speeches and proclaimations were written by Lincoln himself and how much was written by speechwriters, associates, etc. but for the sake of argument...).

Charles Darwin, Feb 12: Terribel writer. So terribel I'm going to leave in the mispelling of the word "terribel". When is someone going to prove Darwin wrong? It's only a matter of time. I'm really looking forward to it. Marilynne Robinson's essay "Darwinism" from her collection The Death of Adam is a good start. It's a difficult piece but it carves out a space in which an intelligent, "scientific" thinker can oppose Darwin without being thought of as merely a "creationist". I guarantee you, the second Darwin's theories become obsolete no one's ever going to take him seriously again. Ever. He's like that college boyfriend/girlfriend you were with for a couple years who you were convinced you were going to spend the rest of your life with, but then one day woke up and realized you don't even have that much in common.

Paris Hilton, Feb. 17: Has she written a book yet? I don't know. I just wanted to advertise the fact she and I have the same birthday and I happen to think that's f*cking awesome.

Michael Jordan, Feb. 17: Yes, I share the same birthday with Paris Hilton and Michael Jordan. Can anyone beat that?

Virginia Woolf, Jan. 25: I like Virginia Woolf. I like how kooky she was. Her suicide is kind of undeniably hardcore. I like her novels. I think A Room of One's Own, in particular, is an elegant statement that, I think, will continue to speak to readers for a long, long time to come.

How's that for a scientific study? Not bad, right? Who have I missed? Help me with the list.

To end on Richard Ford...here's a great piece he wrote for the New York Times for their Writers on Writing series in which he describes his writing process and the importance of not writing:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/110899ford-writing.html