G is for Gaiman to Guterson

Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I should adore. He writes the kind of stuff that interests me--fantasy and science fiction--and seems to be a skilled writer. Unfortunately, I  can't get into his stuff. I've read a few of his short stories, a graphic novel... Like with Andre Norton, the spark simply isn't there.

Diana Gabaldon: I read Outlander. I saw the HBO series. I lost interest in both. The books were recommended to me by a student, who then sent me a link to an article by Gabaldon. Unfortunately, I didn't agree with Gabaldon's reasoning for why Outlander goes on and on and on when it should end about 200 pages earlier. The reasoning sounded like the kind of literary excuses I came up with in college when I wrote stories without endings: But life doesn't have an ending...

Overall, Gabaldon is a good writer. I'm not sure she is a good plotter.

I have a very high opinion of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I consider a true tour de force. I don't find his other works all that interesting: it's hard to determine if this is the writer or the translator(s).

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is best known for "The Yellow Wallpaper" which just about every single literature student is forced to read at one time or another. It's actually quite good: thoroughly creepy. She also wrote Herland. I wrote a tribute/spoof/analysis of Herland: His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding.

Dorothy Gilman is one of my favorite mystery authors of one of the first mysteries I ever read (before I went on to Christie, Tey, and Marsh). Reading Gilman's first Mrs. Pollifax book when I was a teen, I laughed so hard, I fell out of a chair. As well as her Pollifax books, I also recommend The Clairvoyant Countess (I had SUCH a crush on Lieutenant Pruden when I was a teen; he and Sayers's Charles Parker are prototypes for Charles Stowe in my Roesia Chronicles). I do enjoy Gilman's earlier books more than her later ones.

William Goldman: I am stunned that I left Goldman off this list the first time around. He wrote Princess Bride! I read it in high school! And of course, it is a masterpiece...as is the movie. 

Jo Goodman: I've read a few of her books and own one. However, her books often cross the line into a not-unusual romance type: the violent romance. In Goodman's case, it isn't so much rape disguised as love but the idea that the woman's victimized past (the violence that was done to her) makes her attractive. I find this equation just a little queasy-inducing.

I quite enjoyed Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher books (and I really like the television series!): a mystery/erotica series set in early 20th century Australia. Unfortunately, I read a book from another of Greenwood's series which happened to use a motif that bugs me to the nth degree (where the hotness of the significant other is equated to the main character's deservedness: I've known both men and women who think this way); since then, I've never been able to look at her books the same.

I read Graham Greene for "G" on my first A-Z Book list. I haven't read him since. While reading Alister McGrath's C.S. Lewis, I learned that C.S. Lewis recommended Tolkien to win the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature (the letter had recently been disclosed by the Swedish Academy). I can't say it surprised me that Tolkien wasn't even considered--a real fantasy writer win anything literary? But I had to chuckle at McGrath's comment:

"Tolkien's prose was judged inadequate in comparison with his rivals, which included Graham Greene." 

I've read Tolkien. I've read Greene. Tolkien is truly remarkable and unique, whatever his flaws. Greene is nothing whatsoever to write home about.

Isn't he adorable?! I love his hair!

Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series, the one where all the titles are based on pubs, is quite readable. However, Jury falls into the angst category of British detectives and, no offense to Inspector Morse, but boy, I get tired of them. Give me Columbo any day with his quirky smile and odd optimism and unflappability over ANOTHER bachelor detective with a "pad," a bad history with women, and a tendency to brood. There comes a point where I stop caring (I feel the same about female detectives who can't decide which boyfriend to marry; after book 3 or 4, it is soooo tedious--get a hobby, people!). I want to see the hero or heroine going somewhere with life.

Judith Guest wrote Ordinary People. Great movie. Okay book.

My mother read me Rumer Godden, including the fabulous Thursday's Children when I was a youngster.  Although Godden's website identifies Thursday's Children as a children's book, I do not agree. Yes, my mother read it to me; she also read me The Lord of the Rings, and that's not a kids' book either!

I read William Golding's The Lord of the Flies when I was at church camp. Voluntarily: I wasn't assigned to read it. (In fact, bizarrely enough, I've never been assigned this English classic in a Literature class.) It merits its "classic" appellation. However, I feel absolutely no desire (and no need) to read it again.

Yup. I have read Zane Grey! Not much of Zane Grey (Westerns aren't my style) but enough to say...yup, I  have read Zane Grey!

I have scarfed down a few Andrew Greeley mysteries. I hardly remember them. I do remember complaints from Catholic critics about his books. The main complaint is that he uses celibacy as a kind of "oops, I'm sorry" aftermath to rampant priestly infidelity. I, a non-Catholic, am personally in favor of priests marrying, but I get the complainants' point about the underlying amorality, especially since I don't remember Greeley's mysteries as having anything approaching a moral code that I could relate to. 

I read Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson back when everybody was reading it. In fact, I read it for a work bookclub. It's good.