Faithful blog readers: I’m sure you’ve been sitting on the literal edge of your ergonomic seats since the first awe-inspiring Words of Williams column. I certainly have! Luckily, to quench your eager anticipation (and ease your lower back pain) old E.D. has telegraphed to me another beloved installment. If through some insane cosmic error you missed the first one, read this and return promptly. And so, without further hullabalo, I give you…
Words of Williams, Part Two
Hello again dear friend. How I have missed you so. It has come to my attention that we may have gotten off to a rather awkward start, you and I. After all, we only just met and you must be wondering who the hell does this E. D. Williams character thinks he is? Is he some prodigy of literary criticism? Does he live in a secluded cabin in the woods? Does said cabin have electricity or running water? The world may never know. Until then, however, I give you this:
A young E.D. Williams in his salad days
There have been many a sleepless night where I can’t help but imagine Toni Morrison in some Ray Bradburian cave reading the early works of Danielle Steel. She drinks her boxed wine by candlelight and weeps into the mass market pages feeling lost in love. If you happen to find this particular daydream a bit far fetched, yet equally intriguing, then I suggest we proceed to the next step in our exciting installment.
If I may, I will assume that we have all graduated from hiding that copy of Nin’s Little Birds in our sock drawer and have stepped into the light of our own likings. Besides, Mother, that wasn’t our copy to begin with. We were just holding onto it for a friend. Honest. But I digress, as a second glass of scotch is wont to allow. Where was I? Ah yes, the sock drawer. Let us examine its hidden contents without judgment and I will tell you a tale.
It began like any other Easter Weekend, somber and full of hope. But rather than reading something more fitting to the occasion, I decided to play devil’s advocate to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13 verse 11) and read the tales of resurrection according to Stephen King in Pet Sematary.
This is not a spelling error by the way, nor is this the part where I try to convince you to read from his massive catalog of award-winning and highly enjoyable stories. This is merely an attempt to get you to give something less classical a chance. The method is highly unorthodox, I know, but it’s worth a shot. Might even spice things up a bit. Ask anyone who’s cooked with halibut and they will agree that spice goes a long way, my friend. What’s that you say? Just read Foer’s Eating Animals? How about this instead: anyone in a happy, and I dare say healthy, marriage would agree that foreplay is paramount to sexual survival. Oh, that got your attention. So let us then consider King the “foreplay” to Lovecraft’s “down to business.” Holy Rumi in a handbasket! I just blew my own mind. But let us not exclude genres. The same could be said of Lamour’s Sackett to McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. From Spark’s Dear John to….well, not really sure where to go with that. Suffice it to say this list could go on for days so let’s just boil all this down to what you should read and what you could read. Should you read Voltaire’s Candide? Absolutely. Could you read Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series? As my other half, bless her elfin eared heart, can attest: only if you really wanted to. So in closing, I suppose it really all comes down to a number, some grammar, and a bit of wisdom in between.
Step 2. Read anything, if not everything, and read it often.
Love,
E.D. Williams
P.S. Cronin’s The Passage to Stoker’s Dracula. That’s right. June 19th at BookPeople. Get pumped America. Oh and Puerto Rico, you can get pumped too.
BookPeople 