What is for you an outstanding literary work and / or writer?
Writers that manage to change people’s perception and consequently their lives – are to me the greatest writers. In my particular case, writers such as Henri Miller, Khalil Gibran, William Blake and Jorge Luis Borges changed my life. They showed me that the world was much bigger, richer than I could have phantom on my own. They also gave the thirst to experience life – and this is was my life saver.
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Yes ..a “Life Saver”
For me, a great writer does not change my perceptions, but rather makes me realize what my perceptions already are. Reading your works has not changed my views of the world, but it has helped me to understand and recognize the views I already held.
A standing favorite for me is a gentleman named Hugh Prather. His books “Notes To Myself”, “Notes On Love And Courage” and ” I Touch The Earth, And The Earth Touches Me” gave me a burning desire at an early age for self discovery and inner reflection. While I am lost in a book, I feel like I am walking side by side with the storyteller. I have moments where my memories dance parallel to the printed words on the page. I saw my life in “Eleven Minutes” a book that was given to me by my husband. I am eager to read whatever Paulo presents to the world. I find immense joy and peace on every journey I take with him through his books. When I write, it is a purely selfish deed, no matter how it is received. I like to say… “you sing for your supper, while I pander prose for my wine… yet I do not see myself drunk with anticipation”.
In my opinion, writers have said everything and after a certain moment they recycle the same ideas. What makes the difference is the way they express theselves. For instance, my favorite writer, Oscar Wilde, does not say anything special but his expression is so spicy and intelligent that I adore him. I mean he is very pleasant and this explains to me what people mean when they say that “books are our best friends”.
As for “changing people’s perception”, that is a kind of philosophy for me. You, for exemple, you “teach” how to live. You touch a matter that is so philosophical.
Hm let me give you an exemple. The word “litterature” in my language (greek) is “logotexnia” and comes from the words “logos” (speaking( and art (texni->texnia). In other words, litterature is “expressing ideas beautifully”.
Best wishes!
Thank you Isobel!
I love ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte-it is a passionate story set in wild landscape on the bleak Yorkshire moors ( UK )-written by a woman who lived a rather sheltered life in her aunts’ parsonage- a home she shared with her sisters’ Charlotte. and Anne and brother Branwell.The book was published a year before her death from tuberculosis,at age 30.It is said to be perhaps ‘the most passionately original novel in the English language’….
Breda
Very nice Carolena and true!
…In the beginning was the Word. For me outstanding literary work /writers has a touch of something divine to share with the reader. My personal favorite book of all times is Don Helder Camara’s ‘Tousand reasons for living’, because it’s so close to what life is calling me to, and so makes me completely happy to read it over and over again. And, since it’s been a very popular little book, I’m sure others have had similar experiences from reading the words of this wonderful soul. Makes me wonder if there is any process in the Church of canonizing Don Helder Camara, as has begun for i.e. Moder Teresa or Pope John Paul II?
I agree, only writers that change their readers life by what and how they write are the ‘great ones’. The latest in my life are ‘Hafiz’ and ‘Notes from the Universe” by Mike Dooley.
You helped me to change my life too – I am able to believe now.
Something I wrote probably in or around 1995:
Words can create
or destroy…
They can heal,
or fire up the madness.
I’ve got the power
of self expression…
better than any medication.
What will I say,
what should I say?
should i confess?
No, I know,… I’ll show you!
Great answer!
And for my own sake I can add to the list -
Mr Paulo Coelho
Ta-ta*
Yeah,a valid explanation.We could discuss on that topic too much.I dont understand at times,why people that have same taste and almost same cultural background have such different reaction to certain writers.I do not know if I should be more specific.Just that I will say that I have seen that sort of so different reaction in a really important environment.But what to say of your case,we all know many critics consider you a genius, and other a shallow mass phenomenon.I really feel you must be an important writer, not because I feel the need to praise, but because your works do speak to my soul, and because you have your own style( and you are talented).When I hear people who never wrote a novel talking bad about you,it just make me angry.They say is easy to write as you do.So why they do not try,if is so easy.See my point.I love much Shakespeare,you never mention him.Is all right.And I love Alexandre Dumas, Mircea Eliade, Edgar Allan Poe, Victor Hugo,Hawthorne.Now I like a lot John Grisham too, most of his books.Ohh, and Terry Pratchett, J.R.Tolkien.I like much many authors ,took much space to mention them.But, near so many classics or moderns I like your books too.Congratulations.
An outstanding literary work for me is one which makes me believe that the characters are real, that they exist though they are fictional, one in which I experienced what the characters experienced, thus making me a better person–a person who has walked in the shoes of another. In turn, this gives me empathy and understanding and removes the judgements I had before.
That is why I believe that literature can change the world. It can seep into the soul in such a non-confrontational subtle way. Books become a part of you, a part of who you are, and the characters you have met in them become a part of your experience.
The list of my favorite writers would probably be quite long, because there are so many reasons for dubbing a writer as among my “favorites.” Some writers, for example, I admire greatly, solely from a writer’s perspective: because of their poetic voice, because of the risks they take, the experimental quality of their work, the unconventional structure of the books they write, etc. But these books don’t necessarily have to “touch” me deeply to impress me. I appreciate these authors and their works simply for what they can teach me about writing. William Faulkner would be on this list, as would Robert Antoni, Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, James Joyce, and many others.
But then, if I consider only those authors who have “changed my life,” as Paulo says, the list changes considerably. T.S Eliot is a piece of my soul. I cannot express it more aptly. The words of his poems are engraved there, in the depths of my being, and will not leave me for the whole of my life. When I am reading Eliot’s, or even when I just call to mind a line from one his poems, I am instantly transported to another dimension, beyond time and space – a place where everything seems familiar, even things which have not yet occurred. A single phrase contains worlds or worlds, universes so vast that I could not explore them all if I were given eternity to complete this task. Eliot’s works, for me, are not just dead words on a page – they are alive. I cannot explain how I feel that I live these poems, how they course through every fiber of my being, just as the blood courses through my veins…. To read them is like to have a hand reach out before me and rip back a curtain, revealing the all-seeing, all knowing, all-pervasive presence of the Holy Spirit. There are no words to contain the experience.
Everything else, every other writer, comes and goes in phases. It is hard for me to say whose works are most relevant to my growth and evolution, because this changes. Who was important to me ten years ago, or twenty, is not who touches me most deeply today. There was a time, many many years ago, that it was John Steinbeck, and I read everything that he wrote. Each work left its mark upon me. Then there was a phase in which I was obsessed with Carlos Castaneda. Again, I read everything by him that was available. Gabriele d’Annunzio, Tolstoy, Kafka, Richard Bach….the list goes on. I do not usually revisit these writers. For whatever reason, I am drawn toward their works at a particular period in my life, and during that period I absorb so much from them. But then my life changes, I change, and I move on. I do not abandon them, as what they have taught me is now a part of who I am.
I think that right now (and I am realizing this in moment that I write it) right now, it is Paulo Coelho. I am absorbing and living and breathing Paulo Coelho. And this could last for years, perhaps as much as a decade: I will probably read everything that he has ever written. Some works I will read over again and again. Fragments of these texts will become lodged in my spirit, like slivers of a shattered mirror – they will split open the hard shell of who I am, and a new being will emerge. Then, just as surely as before, some day I will put these books down and move on. But when I do, I will not have left them behind, They will not on be “in” me – they will BE me, the way that water BECOMES us when we drink it, the way that the oxygen that we breathe feeds every living cell in our bodies, nourishing and encouraging them to grow and be renewed.