Literary relationships.

In Lukupiiri there is an interesting discussion going on about people's relationships with authors. So many of them have a great variety of relationships for even a greater variety of reasons. Reading about their experiences made me think about my own relationships with certain authors.

Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Simone de Beauvoir and Minna Canth are my literary mothers. They tell me honestly about the important things from the point of vies I can fully understand. They teach me things about life. Even if their writings left me sad, they do so with a power that is fuelled by anger for injustice.

Carl Sagan, J.K. Rowling, H.D. Thoreau and Richard Dawkins are the stereotypical guiding fathers. They teach me more about life and do so with a spark in their eyes, making me sometimes see a glimpse of hope in the darkest of hours when I myself see none.

Neil Gaiman is a relatively new discovery but it feels as if I had known him always. When I read anything by him I know that it'll make me feel good, in the end. I cannot tell how important it is to have this in my life.

For honesty I go to Anna-Leena Härkönen. She doesn't shy away from the unconvenient truths but say things as they are and uses their real names. Also, she's not afraid to put herself in the text, to go for it with all her might. She reveals personal things and isn't ashamed.

My literary sister is Virginie Despentes. I don't agree with her about everything but it doesn't really matter. Her writing hurts because it come too close. It hurts but I keep reading because I know the pain is good for me.

Charles Dickens is the respectful and scary grandfather. He looms in the background and reminds of himself constantly; I read his books but even though I can appreciate them I find it difficult to connect with the text.

There are some classics I read although I don't particularly much like them or downright dislike them. Despite of this I read them because they are classics, such as Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and the like.

Some I know I should be thrilled about but can't seem to find something to create a connection to. I know on the intellectual level that I should hold these high but even when the subjects are important to me, I can't make an emotional connection to them: Virginia Woolf, Sarah Waters, Nawal el Sa'dawi, Tove Jansson, Sofi Oksanen. I guess my life isn't what the books require at the moment, maybe I need to grow older. Perhaps I read them at the wrong time in a wrong state of mind. Who knows?

Then there are the one night stands. The authors whose one specific book I loved but whose other books have been disappointments or neutral or truly appaling waste of paper. This category of friend-or-foes includes Lionel Shriver and Ray Bradbury, to name a couple.