# A writer's writer.



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

I caught a snatch of "Open Book" on BBC radio 4 today and heard the phrase "a writer's writer" to describe Sybille Bedford* - this to distinguish such a writer from one who is a household name. I thought this an interesting phrase and tried to think of other writers who were not popular in general, but were admired by other writers. I thought Booker prize winner Anita Brookner might fit this category - or perhaps Virginia Woolf. Any thoughts?
* Not familiar with this writer myself.


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I think John Gardner might qualify. He wasn't a commercial smash (well, except for the Beowulf remix), but once you start looking under the hood, the quality of his writing and storytelling is deceptively incredible. He had a pretty huge influence as a writing teacher, too. I imagine his name recognition among writers is much higher than among the general set of readers.


----------



## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Henry Green was described (by John Updike I think) as "a writer's writer's writer". 

Check out Living, Loving & Party Going - certainly not for everyone but amazingly constructed and written.

James


----------



## Alessandra Kelley (Feb 22, 2011)

John Crowley is a fantasy/science fiction writers' writer.  His books are seriously admired by other authors.  They're kind of hard to describe, sort of like superdense historical mythological alchemical mysteries chock full of Hermetic allusions.  Like Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" only going much, much further.

Try "Little, Big", or "Aegypt".


----------



## Ruth Harris (Dec 26, 2010)

Graham Greene is incapable of writing a bad sentence.  Peter Godwin's When A Crocodile Eats The Sun is in the same category.  Both write with clarity and elegance.  Robert Harris  writes more commercial books but writes them beautifully.  All are Brits or Brit-educated.  No coincidence, I imagine.


----------



## Basilius (Feb 20, 2010)

Daphne said:


> I caught a snatch of "Open Book" on BBC radio 4 today and heard the phrase "a writer's writer" to describe Sybille Bedford* - this to distinguish such a writer from one who is a household name. I thought this an interesting phrase and tried to think of other writers who were not popular in general, but were admired by other writers. I thought Booker prize winner Anita Brookner might fit this category - or perhaps Virginia Woolf. Any thoughts?
> * Not familiar with this writer myself.


When I hear the phrase "writer's writer" I think "difficult to read." I also think "cares more about the prose than the story."

This may be completely off the mark, but that's my gut reaction. I have to be strongly convinced to read anyone described this way.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Basilius said:


> When I hear the phrase "writer's writer" I think "difficult to read." I also think "cares more about the prose than the story."
> 
> This may be completely off the mark, but that's my gut reaction. I have to be strongly convinced to read anyone described this way.


That's my gut reaction too. I think of James Joyce and my attempt to read _Ulysses_--I got through one page and put it down forevermore, which likely makes me a philistine of sorts. Speaking of John Gardner (I absolutely adore Grendel ), I wonder if he would be better known among the general public if he had lived longer. Grendel is an amazing book, and it makes me sad that he didn't get the chance to write another one like it.


----------



## katie kitty (Feb 28, 2011)

Ben Burroughs. I remember reading him in the paper everyday and trading newspaper clippings with my friends. But he was more of a "People's writer" than a "Writer's writer".


----------



## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

Basilius said:


> When I hear the phrase "writer's writer" I think "difficult to read." I also think "cares more about the prose than the story."
> 
> This may be completely off the mark, but that's my gut reaction. I have to be strongly convinced to read anyone described this way.


Exactly the way I feel about it. Can't count the number of classics I've tossed across the room because the writer is leaping out of the page yelling 'look at me, look how clever this is, look how clever I am.' Sheesh. Get over yourself and get on with the story.

Of course, I fully accept that some people like literary literature. Personally, I like stories.


----------



## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

Dan Simmons, hands down. Anyone who can turn the Canterbury Tales into a genuinely brilliant science fiction adventure with complex and diverse characters is okay in my book.


----------



## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

I really got into the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons.  The name that comes to mind is Richard Russo because his range is so wide.  You've got Nobody's Fool, Straight Man, his short stories, his writing TV movies like Twilight (not that Twilight) and for shows like The Wire.


----------



## Gabriela Popa (Apr 7, 2010)

Hi Daphne,
Long time no see!

I think AS Byatt would qualify.  And William Gas, as another example.
Gabriela


----------



## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

Alessandra Kelley said:


> John Crowley is a fantasy/science fiction writers' writer. His books are seriously admired by other authors. They're kind of hard to describe, sort of like superdense historical mythological alchemical mysteries chock full of Hermetic allusions. Like Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" only going much, much further.
> 
> Try "Little, Big", or "Aegypt".


Alessadra, thanks. That sounds pretty good and I'm checking it out.


----------



## Straker (Oct 1, 2010)

Patrick O'Brian played this role for most of his career, until he finally had a commercial breakthrough very late in life.


----------



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

Basilius said:


> When I hear the phrase "writer's writer" I think "difficult to read." I also think "cares more about the prose than the story."


I think "cares more about the prose than the story" sums up "a writer's writer" pretty well! I do love elegant writing for its own sake and will read a book for the quality of the prose in the same way I enjoy poetry. Scott Fitzgerald is one author who fits this category for me: I don't like his characters and I never care what happens to them, but he write so beautifully I will finish the book anyway. But sometimes I do want a pleasant, light read or a romping good story.

purplepen79 - James Joyce is on my list of "ought to read" rather than "want to read" - and I've just realised that one of the joys of the Kindle is that I can download the sample without having to invest in the whole thing if it is unreadable.

(waves to Gabriela )


My "must try" choice.


----------



## Jon Olson (Dec 10, 2010)

Graham Greene can't write a bad sentence, but he wrote some bad books, I think. 

I guess I'm suspicious of the "writer's writer" label. It's like saying "unpopular writer," maybe.


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I think John Gardner might qualify. He wasn't a commercial smash (well, except for the Beowulf remix), but once you start looking under the hood, the quality of his writing and storytelling is deceptively incredible. He had a pretty huge influence as a writing teacher, too. I imagine his name recognition among writers is much higher than among the general set of readers.


Nabokov springs to mind instantly as a "writer's writer." Others: Joyce, Pynchon . . . .


----------



## J Dean (Feb 9, 2009)

Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and Haruki Murakami


----------



## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Not sure that 'good prose' and 'good story' have to be thought of as either/or choices to be honest...

Daphne - if you're starting Joyce I'd suggested Dubliners (his first) is an easier route in than Ulysses (which is about the hardest book I've ever read).

James


----------



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

James Everington said:


> Daphne - if you're starting Joyce I'd suggested Dubliners (his first) is an easier route in than Ulysses (which is about the hardest book I've ever read).
> James


I've only downloaded the sample of Ulysses and I'm hoping that I hate it because it costs over £6 on Kindle. I think I'll look for Dubliners in paperback.
("The hardest book I've ever read" ...ooh, I like a challenge!)


----------



## Glen Krisch (Dec 21, 2010)

I'm currently reading Sybille Bedford's biography of Aldous Huxley.  It's quite extensive (almost 800 pages), and since she was a close friend of the Huxley family, the information bears that intimacy.  My only complaint is that she often used French quotations without having an English translation.  Hey, not everyone reads French!


----------



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

Glen Krisch said:


> My only complaint is that she often used French quotations without having an English translation. Hey, not everyone reads French!


Dorothy Sayers does just that with both French and Latin! And in *Clouds of Witness* the evidence hangs on a letter written in French and a few words on the blotting paper which are important because of the feminine/masculine usage of a French word. I think this is explained just about enough for the non-French speaker, but you just know that the Oxford educated Sayers took it for granted that her readers shared her learning.
Interested to hear of someone reading Sybille Bedford - I hadn't heard of her before.


----------



## joanhallhovey (Nov 7, 2010)

I have always found Virginia Wolfe difficulty to read.  I loved Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.  But a writer's writer can also be a favorite to the masses - like Stephen King.  He's the Charles Dickens of our century, in my opinion.  Which is not so humble. -
I read Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekkyl not long ago, and thought how wonderful the description was, the sensory detail.  You were right there in the scene with the characters.  The same with The Red Badge of courage by Stephen Crane.  Amazing talents, their books almost live performances.


----------



## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Daphne said:


> I've only downloaded the sample of Ulysses and I'm hoping that I hate it because it costs over £6 on Kindle. I think I'll look for Dubliners in paperback.
> ("The hardest book I've ever read" ...ooh, I like a challenge!)


All I say is, if you get going with it, don't stop for any length of time. Too hard to get back into the groove if you lose it...


----------



## CJ West (Feb 24, 2010)

Basilius said:


> When I hear the phrase "writer's writer" I think "difficult to read." I also think "cares more about the prose than the story."
> 
> This may be completely off the mark, but that's my gut reaction. I have to be strongly convinced to read anyone described this way.


This is right on! I'm focused on story and characters and while I like to write sentences that sing, I'm much rather have a plot turn or a devilish character that fascinates readers.


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Margaret Jean said:


> Nabokov springs to mind instantly as a "writer's writer." Others: Joyce, Pynchon . . . .


Definitely Nabokov. I got into him in college and was raving about him to a writing professor one day about how jealous I was he could write like that in a non-native language and how I'd like to write like him some day. This professor, a wizened Virginian, smiled and said "Don't even try. You'll just look like a fool." Probably some of the best advice I got in four years.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Daphne said:


> I've only downloaded the sample of Ulysses and I'm hoping that I hate it because it costs over £6 on Kindle. I think I'll look for Dubliners in paperback.
> ("The hardest book I've ever read" ...ooh, I like a challenge!)


May you have better luck than I . . .


----------



## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

I think it's natural for readers to gravitate toward fun reads, genre fiction. Literary fiction is harder. I admire it, and read it sometimes, but these books rarely have the sales figures. A writer's writer tends to write literary fiction. There are exceptions, but they have to work hard to get that acknowledgment. A few people have mentioned King and I would agree, but it took non-horror writers a long time to respect him as a true peer. King is an exceptional writer who _happens_ to write horror and science fiction, but I think most writers now know he is more than that and worthy of their jealousy and resentment.


----------



## Mary Pat Hyland (Feb 14, 2011)

I participated in a round-the-clock reading of Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake" once. At the time I was just starting to learn Gaeilge, the Irish language. Joyce's wife Nora was a native speaker. Funny, but reading it aloud as opposed to silently, I realized all the puns in Gaeilge he'd inserted into the story and found it delightful.

John Gardner taught at the local university and lived nearby. We were fortunate to have him here as part of our community. Went to the debut of his play, "October Light." Terrific!


----------



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

purplepen79 said:


> May you have better luck than I . . .


Hmm... no luck at all. A case of 50% me being daft and 50% things not being clear on Kindle. I had looked for Ulysses on Kindle search and found Joyce: Ulysses (mumble, mumble, didn't read what was in the brackets, mumble) - Not, as it turns out, Ulysses at all but a commentary. A timely reminder to myself why I check out samples before purchase. Anyway, it doesn't seem to be available on Kindle in the UK. Looks like I'll have to track down the book in a second hand shop.


----------



## Hedra Helix (Feb 17, 2011)

Amy Hemple! She's got an amazingly dynamic voice for such sparse writing. The tone of it really sticks with you. You always feel like she's telling a secret. A _real_ secret.
Her complete collection is one of my all time favorite books, right up there with Gatsby.

And then there's Junot Diaz with Oscar Wao. I stopped reading about 20 pages in -even though I was in bliss, and went to youtube to check out vids of Junot. I had to know if his speaking voice varied from his writing voice. {Surprisingly it does!} 
I'm pretty sure Oscar Wao is a readers book as well as a writers book though. That thing kills!


----------



## Hedra Helix (Feb 17, 2011)

J Dean said:


> Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and Haruki Murakami


Oh yesss! Bradbury too!


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Ruth Harris said:


> Graham Greene is incapable of writing a bad sentence. Peter Godwin's When A Crocodile Eats The Sun is in the same category. Both write with clarity and elegance. Robert Harris writes more commercial books but writes them beautifully. All are Brits or Brit-educated. No coincidence, I imagine.


I adore Graham Greene and my admiration for him only increases as the years go by. My fav: THE POWER & THE GLORY. But I don't think of him as a writer's writer. He had axes to grind, he needed to be widely read in order to "grind" them, that is make his point. He wasn't really a self-conscious stylist and did not aim primarily for the literati and the critics the way most "writer's writers" do (Joyce, Nabokov, Pynchon etc.). I may be narrow in my definition of WWs, but as I use the term, they target an erudite sophisicated readership and that's what rings their bell: to be read and appreciated by that tiny sliver of the reading population.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Mary Pat Hyland said:


> John Gardner taught at the local university and lived nearby. We were fortunate to have him here as part of our community. Went to the debut of his play, "October Light." Terrific!


What a wonderful memory to share! I'm envious--I've never seen any of his plays.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, Daphne


----------



## lpking (Feb 12, 2011)

Nabokov brings to mind Joseph Conrad. Incomparable stylist.


----------



## maryannaevans (Apr 10, 2010)

Back when I was an aspiring writer who inexplicably decided to major in engineering, I used to take courses in writing and Shakespeare and classical civilization for fun. This meant that both my engineering peers and the students in whatever class I was crashing _all_ thought I was weird.

One of my favorite classes was called Survey of Modern Popular Fiction: The Bestseller. Basically, I sat in a class full of English majors, taught by an English professor, and we read a big pile of books that many people would call trash at the worst, and light reading at the best. Mickey Spillane. Danielle Steel. Erica Jong. Stephen King. Ian Fleming.

Our general consensus was that Mickey Spillane was who he was, because he could spin a great story with style. None of us thought that Danielle Steel could write her way out of a paper bag, but our teacher told us that she was ashamed to admit that her eyes teared up during the contrived and maudling ending. We all agreed that Stephen King was a fine writer who just happened to write about subjects that are dismissed by critics.

I agree with many names listed above. I especially wanted to second Fitzgerald and Bradbury, and I'd like to add Ursula LeGuin and William Faulkner to the list. I am continually impressed by all of these writers' use of language and the by the evocative reality of the worlds they create.


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

James Everington said:


> All I say is, if you get going with it, don't stop for any length of time. Too hard to get back into the groove if you lose it...


If you're reading Joyce for the first time, get a copy of Joseph Campbell's Key to Finnegan's Wake (even if you're starting wIth Ulysses). Joyce was a literary genius and polymath and didn't cut his readers any slack. He didn't give a rip basically if you "got" him or not. But once you get in the front door with him, he will dazzle you. He is highly allusive, references so many literary/cultural events and icons-- very few can penetrate, let alone keep up with him at first without help. But when you catch on to what he is doing in his fiction, you will love him. Or then again, you won't :_)


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Gabriela Popa said:


> Hi Daphne,
> Long time no see!
> 
> I think AS Byatt would qualify. And William Gas, as another example.
> Gabriela


AHHH, William Gass. Surely an acquired taste. Brilliant. I've read all of his books and essays. I did a writing workshop with him once years ago. Unaccountably (and highly "miffing" to me) he raved about my poems as being so like Dame Edith Sitwell's. Gawd, I'll never forget it. I could see no resemblance whatsoever, in style-subject matter-voice etc.--I thought she was an English frivolous twit, but he thought she was a literary genius. Looking back on it, I wonder if it was a joke. I was just 20, just starting out, just out of grad school. I was putty in his hands.


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Definitely Nabokov. I got into him in college and was raving about him to a writing professor one day about how jealous I was he could write like that in a non-native language and how I'd like to write like him some day. This professor, a wizened Virginian, smiled and said "Don't even try. You'll just look like a fool." Probably some of the best advice I got in four years.


Well then, we both revere Nabokov. But I will tell you--as an English professor myself--the best thing I ever did for my own writing was to ditch wholesale what most of my dried up green-with-envy English professors said about CONTEMPORARY writing and lit. You simply can not write well what you must write with the sense they are looking over your shoulder all the time. Originality defies them because it's not in the Canon. Their careers are built on writing dim dense monographs about books in the Canon (which no one reads). Of course there are marvelous exceptions. But first and foremost indulge your imagination, follow your own muse.


----------



## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

Dylan Thomas. Yes, he was a poet and not a novelist, but his writing absolutely inspires me.


----------



## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

my nominations:

Tillie Olsen
Grace Paley
Cynthia Ozick

As for Graham Greene, absolutely; The Power and the Glory is a great masterpiece. I also liked one of his slighter books, England Made Me.


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

maryannaevans said:


> Back when I was an aspiring writer who inexplicably decided to major in engineering, I used to take courses in writing and Shakespeare and classical civilization for fun. This meant that both my engineering peers and the students in whatever class I was crashing _all_ thought I was weird.
> 
> One of my favorite classes was called Survey of Modern Popular Fiction: The Bestseller. Basically, I sat in a class full of English majors, taught by an English professor, and we read a big pile of books that many people would call trash at the worst, and light reading at the best. Mickey Spillane. Danielle Steel. Erica Jong. Stephen King. Ian Fleming.
> 
> ...


Hey, girl! Nice to bump into you here!


----------



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> Dylan Thomas. Yes, he was a poet and not a novelist, but his writing absolutely inspires me.


Yepper! "Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage rage against the dying of the light." Wowser. And: "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." So many loaded unforgettable lines.


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Margaret Jean said:


> Well then, we both revere Nabokov. But I will tell you--as an English professor myself--the best thing I ever did for my own writing was to ditch wholesale what most of my dried up green-with-envy English professors said about CONTEMPORARY writing and lit. You simply can not write well what you must write with the sense they are looking over your shoulder all the time. Originality defies them because it's not in the Canon. Their careers are built on writing dim dense monographs about books in the Canon (which no one reads). Of course there are marvelous exceptions. But first and foremost indulge your imagination, follow your own muse.


This guy is a pretty great novelist, actually. He could capture the Southern dialect so subtly you'd end up reading with an accent. Unfortunately, he's one of those guys who ended up with a great agent, but can't seem to get published (including the ol' "had a deal, then the publishing company collapsed before the book hit print" thing). I can't believe some other house hasn't taken a shot on him.


----------



## lpking (Feb 12, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> "...one of those guys who ended up with a great agent, but can't seem to get published (including the ol' "had a deal, then the publishing company collapsed before the book hit print" thing). I can't believe some other house hasn't taken a shot on him.


Do him a favour and talk him into self-pubbing on Amazon. 

Are we restricted to writers who work in English? Thinking of the work that's amazed me over the last forty years, Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes to mind.


----------



## TaniaLT (Oct 16, 2010)

Carol Shields. I've mentioned her in other posts but her writing, for me, is outstanding and something to be emulated, or at least try.


----------



## Guest (Apr 13, 2011)

It sort of presumes that all writers would react the same way, and we clearly don't.

Like "man's man."  Err.  It's sort of a pedantic filler-phrase.

Though, to be fair, I didn't hear it in context, so I'm just reacting to the OP's thoughts.


----------



## Julia444 (Feb 24, 2011)

Oh, Tania--I agree with Carol Shields!!  A true stylist, but sometimes inscrutable, and certainly not an "easy" read.  And while we're talking of people who won the Pulitzer for fiction (I think Shields won in '95), I'm reminded of Jonathan Franzen (who was a finalist, not a winner).

Remember his whole "highbrow" and "lowbrow" battle with Oprah?  I suppose his stuff is highbrow, but that's exactly what makes him a "writer's writer" and not someone attainable to all.

Julia


----------



## 5711 (Sep 18, 2009)

I second those calls for Graham Greene and Nabokov. Both blew my mind at a young age and inspired me to read and write more.

Not many know about Charles McCarry, but I definitely recommend him as similar to Graham Greene or the best from Le Carré. He gets labeled as an espionage genre writer, but the quality transcends standards. Here's some background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_McCarry

Trust me on this one!


----------

