Writers on Writers

[Clopin]

I just read this grouping of quotations about James Joyce's literary tastes and was curious to see if anyone here had any similar articles or quotations from or about other writers, where they list their own influences, favorites and dislikes.

The article is here http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/James-Joyce-Literary-Tastes.pdf

It seems Joyce held Ibsen, Tolstoy, Defoe and Chaucer in highest esteem and disliked Pushkin, Hardy, Turgenev, Lawrence, Thoreau, Thackeray and Tennyson!

Surprisingly Ibsen is regarded as a better dramatist than Shakespeare (though Joyce read him in his original language and I've only read translations) and Defoe, oddly enough, is one of only three authors Joyce claimed to have read every word of. Actually in keeping with the thread topic, Swift who Joyce doesn't meantion and who was a contemporary of Defoe dismissed him as being "illiterate".

[sweetcaroline]

I know that TS Eliot hated Poe (my true love, Poe) and presented this in a public lecture. The gall! I adore both poets, too!

[Lykren]

Well, this one's famous:

http://www.openculture.com/2014/06/the-manuscript-of-the-proust-questionnaire.html

It's mostly about his personality, but there's a bit about the art he liked, too. I think it's funny how vague he is sometimes:

"Your favorite qualities in a man. Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship.

Your favorite qualities in a woman. Feminine charms"

Hmm, wonder why they didn't include "Your favorite qualities in a tortured rat" as a question.

[Pompey Bum]

Interesting, Clopin. I'm surprised to find Hemingway among Joyce's turn-ons; and Kipling, London, and Harte getting as far as the "mixed reviews." I'm not at all surprised to see poor Thackeray (who stuck pins in people like Joyce) on his enemies list. Vanity Fair's strength as satire is that it pisses everybody off (although Joyce is probably right about two-thirds of Thackeray's work). Where, one wonders, is Dickens? Didn't Joyce have the gumption to own up to what he was rebelling against?

[Clopin]

Well Joyce and Hemingway were personally acquainted so he may have been a bit kinder about him than he would have been otherwise.

[Pompey Bum]

Ah yes! Expats unite. Been there, done that.

[kev67]

George Orwell wrote quite a few essays on other authors, including Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, W.B. Yeats, Arthur Koestler, P.G. Wodehouse, Jonathon Swift and Henry Miller. I remember he had things to say about Ezra Pound and G.K. Chesterton.