Readers Choice

Dear Web Log,

When one sits down to write a thing or two, it is recommended to reflect on the writing styles one remembers enjoying; as to calibrate the voice to something agreeable to read. One should also find a way to fit animals in, people like to read about animals.

Recently I read the book Despair, by Nabokov. I enjoyed this for the same reason I enjoy the writing style of Vonnegut, and even Kerouac. It's a tale of an evil man who does an evil thing, he writes of how this evil man, facing capture by the police, passes the story to a Russian Author, who publishes it under his own name. But we are speaking not of plot but of Voice.

If you don't know their work, just think of Nabokov as the smart one, reading him is like delving into the mind of a twisted genius, his precise word choices have you reaching for the dictionary. Why throw something out a window when it can be defenestrated? He wrote in German, Russian and English to boot! Vladimir has a calculating and Academic voice. He wears glasses and a blue shirt.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is the coolest one of the three, a witty hipster in unabashed wonder of the meaninglessness of our world.. Heavy on devices (mnemonic, musical and literary) and light on structure, his stories are versed and practiced to the point that the tale of his capture by Germans sounds like an old bar joke. Kurt has a charismatic and wild Voice with a capital A for the sacred Absurd

Kerouac is the chubby one with the most irritating Voice, he just eats and drinks and rolls around on the floor. No wait, that's Theodore, I was thinking of the Chipmunks.

Out,

KZ