I Write Like…Who???
Paul July 17th, 2010
Having read about the new website “I Write Like” (http://iwl.me/), which matches samples of one’s own prose with those of famous authors, I decided to have the site analyze some of the longer entries from my “memoir in flux,” and here are the results.
My recollection of the one time I met Arthur Miller was likened to the prose of Vladimir Nabokov. This was very flattering indeed. I’ve read and admired everything Nabokov has ever written, most especially the novel Lolita; and, of course, his wondrous autobiography, Speak, Memory!
My account of the brief encounter I had with Kurt Vonnegut was said to be reminiscent of none other than…Kurt Vonnegut! I’m not sure what to think about this comparison, since I am definitely not a Vonnegut fan, except perhaps for a couple of short pieces in Welcome to the Monkey House.
My story about Robert Anderson’s reply to a letter I wrote him when I was a teenager in the Philippines, asking him about possible interpretations of his play Tea and Sympathy, was tagged as something William Gibson might have written. Only problem is, there are at least two William Gibsons who are writers. There’s William Gibson, the cyberpunk novelist; and there’s William Gibson, the playwright who wrote The Miracle Worker. Surely, it must be the latter, because I’ve seen many of his plays, and because I know the former only by reputation.
One of my many entries about Sarah Palin was decoded and identified with Dan Brown, whom I’ve never read. I did see the movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, which bored me to death, so I’m baffled by the link. But, now that I’m thinking about it, I do see some similarity between Sarah Palin’s self-satisfied smirk of a smile with that of Mona Lisa. I may be the only person in the world who thinks that Ms. Lisa looks like a balding, overweight man in drag. I’m sure this is what Sarah Palin will look like after the 2012 election.
My retelling of what happened the night I got the long-distance telephone call from Manila that my father had died, was, to my surprise, compared to the work of Stephen King. In truth, though, my father did have a dog once who had rabies and was Cujo-like before it had to be put down. And, I do like Stand by Me–the novel, the movie adaptation with River Phoenix, and also the song written and originally performed by Ben E. King.
I tried three more entries from my website—one about my mother’s laughter, and two about my various encounters with William S. Burroughs. Remarkably, all three entries identified me as another David Foster Wallace. Unfortunately, I had no idea who David Foster Wallace was, nor what he might have written. So I looked him up on the internet.
It turns out that David Foster Wallace was a novelist, short story writer, and essayist who was also a creative writing professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. The Los Angeles Times named him “one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years,” and his 1996 novel Infinite Jest was included by Time magazine in its All-Time 100 Greatest Novels list (covering the period 1923-2006).
This is great. It’ll give me a good excuse to catch up on contemporary fiction. I’ve been immersed too long in theatre and dramatic literature.
By way of trivia, I also learned that David Foster Wallace was close to his two dogs, Bella and Warner, and that he had talked frequently about opening a dog shelter. His friends said that “he had a special predilection for dogs who had been abused and were unlikely to find other owners who were going to be patient enough for them”
It gets better and better. I really like this guy. I’m going to buy and read all his books, see if we really view life and approach writing the same way. And then, suddenly, his name rang a bell.
According to a September 14, 2008 article in The New York Times, David Foster Wallace “died on Friday at his home in Claremont, Calif. He was 46. A spokeswoman for the Claremont police said Mr. Wallace’s wife, Karen Green, returned home to find that her husband had hanged himself. Mr. Wallace’s father, James Donald Wallace, said in an interview on Sunday that his son had been severely depressed for a number of months.”
Oh, God. Now I’m depressed.
