May 15, 2022·edited May 15, 2022Liked by Douglas Glover
I just finished reading your "Savage Love," and I loved it, almost savagely. As soon as I started it, I was visited by the ghosts of Hawkes, Barth, Coover, Gass, Barthelme, Pynchon, et al, voices that I encountered first in 1979 in an American Lit course at St Jeromes College, University of Waterloo. These were writers who forever upended my notion of what fiction is, what it could be (I revisit them frequently).
When I first proposed a topic for my PhD research at the University of Alberta, it was to investigate the socio-historical differences between Canadian and American cultures that made it apparently impossible for Canadian writers (with a very few exceptions at the time) to write like these dazzling Americans. That proposal won me an Izaak Walton Killam scholarship, but I never pursued it (settling instead on an investigation of the socio-historical conditions that fostered the emergence of "Literature"). In the end, I didn't get far and never finished the PhD at all.
Now, almost 40 years later, I am so happy to engage with your writing (I just read "Precious," as well). I must say, I am also enjoying the recordings of your discussions with some of these guys. Thanks.
Oh what fun to read about (and listen to, hopefully sooner than later). Could you, have time to dwell, at some point? I would love that dwell as well. Thanks, dg.
Another essay by M. Glover, another trunkload of books I'll have to read. Really enjoyed this.
I just finished reading your "Savage Love," and I loved it, almost savagely. As soon as I started it, I was visited by the ghosts of Hawkes, Barth, Coover, Gass, Barthelme, Pynchon, et al, voices that I encountered first in 1979 in an American Lit course at St Jeromes College, University of Waterloo. These were writers who forever upended my notion of what fiction is, what it could be (I revisit them frequently).
When I first proposed a topic for my PhD research at the University of Alberta, it was to investigate the socio-historical differences between Canadian and American cultures that made it apparently impossible for Canadian writers (with a very few exceptions at the time) to write like these dazzling Americans. That proposal won me an Izaak Walton Killam scholarship, but I never pursued it (settling instead on an investigation of the socio-historical conditions that fostered the emergence of "Literature"). In the end, I didn't get far and never finished the PhD at all.
Now, almost 40 years later, I am so happy to engage with your writing (I just read "Precious," as well). I must say, I am also enjoying the recordings of your discussions with some of these guys. Thanks.
Oh what fun to read about (and listen to, hopefully sooner than later). Could you, have time to dwell, at some point? I would love that dwell as well. Thanks, dg.
Glover's posts are so diverse, and yet they are always beautifully composed and structured. One of our finest contemporary writers.