#if you read everything is illuminated LET ME KNOW OMFG I DONT HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT

[compacflt]

do you have any book recs in general? i love your writing style and would love to know what inspires you! <3

four books that i can say really genuinely inspired me and my writing in terms of most to least favorite (of course these are all favorites but they can still be ranked)

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer — for masterful use of symbolism, epistles, the fact that every time i read it (over a dozen times at this point) i discover something new, and the fact that JSF was twenty when he wrote it—lends some belief that i might be able to do the same or similar. read this book when i was 15 and it is no joke the reason i am at the school I am at right now. long story but… this book makes up a sizable share of my soul

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque — for plot, character, and power of emotion. If you get a good translation, this book feels like a modern piece of war fiction akin to Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds or the first half of Full Metal Jacket. There’s a reason this book was one of the first to be burned by the NDSAP in the early 1930s. Absolutely superb & reading this book at 14 right after i had experienced my own sense of unparalleled loss and tragedy genuinely changed my life. A solid part of why i am interested in milhistory

American Pastoral by Philip Roth — for character, specificity of detail, and engagement with politics. I love every Roth piece I get my hands on. He’s gritty and gross and ahead of his time. This book was genuinely devastating to read. It’s so specific it HURTS. Proved to me that details are how you sell a story. There’s like a three-page monologue about how to make women’s gloves, and because of the context every word is more gripping than the last. One of the best ever American authors at the peak of his game imo. Which is not an unpopular opinion, this book is heavily lauded for a reason

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov — for plot, inventiveness of language, and character most especially. Lolita actually isn’t an all time fav for me because I didn’t particularly like the ending (i didn’t understand the role of quilty in the story) but I can definitely say it’s had a clear impact on the way i write and especially the way i narrate. Humbert humbert squeezes out the truth and is so ashamed of the truth that his shame and all his little lies bleed out through every word. He’s utterly absurd but he’s entirely believable. He’s just… I don’t know. He’s just human. In a way that all fictional characters have an imperative to be human, because fiction is a reflection of our own sick and shameful real lives… and that comes out in Nabokov’s diction and syntax. It’s less specificity of detail, like Roth—actually it’s barely specific with details at all because the details are so explicit and shameful—it’s more specificity of LANGUAGE. Beautiful writing for writing’s sake.

But pretty obviously what has affected my writing most is that i moooostly read only straight white men writing about straight white men problems. See above. So my reading list might not be applicable/enjoyable for everyone. i would like to think i write like a straight white man. that’s my goal. my strategy is not to follow in their footsteps or to break glass ceilings but to eventually beat them at their own game. we’ll see how that goes.