SubscribeI’m a few days behind on this, but I’ve just seen the latest Weekly Geeks question, and it really made me think.
Tell your readers what is it about “an” author that you are most passionate about, that have you coming back for more from them, following their every blog post – literally blackmailing people to read their books?
Who are some of your all time favourite authors?
And what is it about them that makes you keep going back for more?
I have, I think, my favourite books pretty well down pat. But favourite authors? I don’t think there are actually that many authors whose entire output I have read. There are many whose work I’ve read a substantial portion thereof, but can you really peg someone as a favourite author when you haven’t read every word they have cast into the public domain? Margaret Atwood, for instance. I’ve read 10 of her novels and short story collections. That’s quite a lot to read by any author. Except she’s written over 20 novels and short story collections, and that’s before we get to her poetry, non-fiction, and children’s books. Can she really be a true favourite? I tend to count her as one, but am I jumping the gun? I’m not sure.
For safety’s sake, then, I’ve chosen to blog about Sarah Waters. She has written five novels, and I’ve read all of them. Why do I like her writing so much?
Reason #1: What attracted me to her first three novels was their Victorian setting. Specifically, none of them were focussed on “mainstream” lives, rather there was a sort of underground element to them all. Tipping the Velvet was set amongst the music halls, the backstreets, the queer, and finally the socialist movements of Victorian London. Affinity featured prisons and spiritualism. Fingersmith had slum dwellers, thieves, and rich collectors of erotic books. They were none of them about ladies going visiting at regular hours, and that appealed to me. Her two most recent novels, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger, are set in the 1940s, but by that time I was hooked on her writing, regardless of time-setting.
Reason #2: Her characters. As I have mentioned about a bazillion times before, my favourite books are character-driven. If I don’t believe in the person I’m reading about, then I might as well just put the book down and forget about it (the exception to this is my guilty penchant for trashy, gory crime novels). Sarah Waters can do characters. From Nancy and Kitty in Tipping the Velvet to Dr Faraday and Caroline in The Little Stranger, I remember all of them more clearly, sometimes, than I remember the actual plots. That’s a good sign in my book, though I grant it might not be in everyone else’s.
Reason #3: When I said that I remember the characters better than I remember the plots, that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten all the plots. Far from it, and this is reason the third. Sometimes in literary fiction it feels like the plot is the last thing on the author’s mind, behind crafting language and the intricate placing of the semi-colon. I’m not saying that’s necessarily wrong, I’m all for beautiful language, but a story would be nice too please. Sarah Waters writes beautifully, but she also writes bloody good stories. The twist in Fingersmith! The ambiguous ending of The Little Stranger! The backward narrative arcs of The Night Watch! All good stuff.
For me, Sarah Waters does it all: great settings, authentic historical detail, brilliantly drawn characters, and cracking stories to boot. What more could you want?
These are the things that have me “going back for more” in any author, though characters are the main thing for me. Margaret Atwood does great characters with the added bonus of salient political/feminist points in much of her work. Ali Smith has the poetic style that I know alienates some readers, but consistently has me going back to her. Jonathan Coe, again, does great characters and is genuinely funny. In the realms of the Victorian novel, again, I like big stories (Dickens, Wilkie Collins) and political fiction (the New Women writers) and really great characters, especially the women.
Last night I started reading Rupture by Simon Lelic, which I won in kimbofo’s recent giveaway, and I got half way through in one sitting. I’m thoroughly enjoying it (I’m not sure, as Kim said, that “enjoy” is necessarily the word for this very dark novel, but you take my point) and that is again down to the factors above. But more of that novel when I’ve finished it, which at this rate, won’t be long at all.
Louise 
I love Sarah Waters too! Fingersmith is one of my favourite books and I enjoyed The Litte Stranger. I don’t want to read her other books for a while as I saw the fantastic BBC adaptations of them and don’t like having the screen version so fresh in my memory when starting a book. I’m sure I’ll love them though.
Rupture is my favourite read so far in 2010. I’m pleased that you are enjoying it so far.