Real Words

One of the annual projects that I had planned on executing this year was to read all the books by (and all the material I could get my hands on about) author Milan Kundera. Unfortunately, as I started this project, I found that I wasn’t enjoying Kundera’s books as much as I’d thought I would. Although I still love the first Kundera book that I fell in love with (Identity), I quickly saw that his other books didn’t fill me with the kind of inspiration that I was hoping to get out of the project.

I decided I’d probably select another author for the project and was leaning towards Somerset Maugham when I stumbled across Armistead Maupin. Maupin is the author of a series of books called Tales of the City that is set in San Francisco. I love this city that I call home and am always excited when I discover anything that gives me a new look at it. The first book in the series, also titled Tales of the City, mentions many different places and occurrences in San Francisco at the time that the book was written (1978). This gives me a chance to see how the city has changed from the details mentioned there to the way I know the city to be now.

But what really interests me about this author is the style of writing that it displays. Here’s where I’ll reveal a secret about myself: I like chick lit. I don’t read it often. I don’t think it’s necessarily the most inspiring or creative genre out there. And I’m not too girly so a lot of the details of it tend to seem frivolous to me. But on a day when I want fluff to read, chick lit is my genre of choice (followed closely by true crime novels). And what I’m finding here is that Maupin seems to be the original chick lit writer. Years before the genre had a name, this man managed to get to the heart of the wit that’s behind this kind of writing.

Of course, Tales of the City doesn’t stick specifically within the chick lit genre which is probably why I like it so much. It tells the tales of women (and men) in the city from the perspective of an open-minded San Francisco swinging kind of place. And there are some great turns of phrase in the book that make it literary as well as fun. More importantly, to me anyhow, is the fact that the book does a great job of creating a whole series of characters and then intertwining them over time. This is something I don’t do well in my own creative writing and aspire to do better at so it’s exciting to find an example of it that I can pattern some ideas on.

There are seven books in the series as well as a few other books that Maupin has under his belt so this should keep me busy for awhile. That makes me happy since I was hoping to have a reading goal this year. I really do think that getting to know an author’s works from the beginning to the end allows a writer a chance to explore the creative process from the inside out. I’m looking forward to the chance to do that with Maupin!