I Got Your Skull Hum Right Here
So who all saw that New York Times Book Review piece yesterday? You know, the one where the magazine asked a group of fiction writers, 40 years or younger, "who had most influenced their work and to explain how."?
Some of the responses were more pretentious than others. I'm looking at you, Mr. Jonathan Safran "It's with art, after all, that a culture best expresses its humanity" Foer. What the hell does that mean? Anyway, here is the stunning list of responses: Donald Barthelme, Kafka, Peter Carey, William Trevor, Breece D'J Pancake, Geoffrey Wolff, Mark Twain, C.S. Lewis, and Jean Toomer. Actually, that list is a little more interesting when I type it out this way. My rejected entry follows:
"Sure, I could blow helium up your asses and say I owe everything to Philip Roth or Kurt Vonnegut, or I could try to seem all sensitive and urban by claiming Joseph Mitchell or A.J Liebling as my own, or I could take the 'I've turned dark in my early middle age' approach and name Jim Thompson or Patricia Highsmith. Whether or not it shows in my work, I consider all those writers influences. But I would say that overall, my literary sensibility was formed when I saw that scene in Airplane! where Julie Hagerty gives a blowjob to the inflatable pilot. Another possibility is the "Inquisition Song" in History Of The World Part One. After I saw those movies, my mind was wrecked for life. It's like I have Leslie Neilsen inside my head, saying 'I just wanted you to know, we're all counting on you' every five seconds.
The first adult books I read were all eight of The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes. You remember those? The Bastard? The Seekers? The Guy With The Mustache And The Gun? I loved those books. They taught me how to move a narrative forward without any real character development. Not nearly enough sex, though, which is why I kept Clan Of The Cave Bear near my bed, hidden under a science textbook along with my Wonder Woman comics."
Why didn't the Times publish that? Are their book editors afraid of my ideas?