I don't know why this occurred to me, but I was thinking about what books or authors have really influenced me - in terms of my thinking, or my writing, or the ideas I'm left with to this day, and just in general the person I've become. And I can think of quite a few that were important in influencing me one way or another. So, here we go, in no particular order.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Books 1-5) - Douglas Adams
I have an edition of this that has all five books in one volume, and let me just say: this is a book that I have read cover to cover on multiple occasions, and yet it still manages to get me off guard every single time. I always laugh out loud somewhere. I don't know why - I've heard all the jokes before. But it's still funny, every single time.
And I think the reason that I'm framing this as an influential book rather than simply one that I enjoy immensely is that it really has influenced my sense of humour in ways that not many other works can claim to do. I first read it when I was still kind of impressionable, and I think you can tell that my sense of humour's a little bizarre because of it, a little off-kilter and, shall we say, imaginative. I've adopted Ford Prefect's deadpan, and the ability to laugh at pettiness a la Arthur Dent, not to mention the ridiculousness that defines the entire series. This book is basically my sense of humour in a nutshell.
There's also that, despite the ridiculousness of the entire thing, the characters do have some meat to them - even if they're not likable (which they aren't, but that doesn't mean they aren't imbued with their own twisted charm), they do manage to justify most of what they do. If you can dig through the nonsense and find that, it makes for an interesting read. Mind you, that is a lot of digging to be done - which is fine, because the nonsense is why I loved it in the first place.
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
This might just be the single most influential book of my childhood. In it we find villains so evil and so compelling that from there on out, every single villain of their type had to be compared to them. Here we find what I believe to be the first morally ambiguous character who I felt actual, fierce affection for - I'm referring to Dustfinger, of course, our one neutral player. Here we find interesting adult characters, imbued with their own motivations and views and humour and goals - this is a rarity in the 8-12 section at the book store, let me assure you. Here we find a kid, who's strong enough to defeat the villain herself, and yet very human.
All of this was pretty important for someone like me, who was just figuring out the stories I wanted to tell as a writer, and who, to this day, constantly writes stories with active adults who don't necessarily take over the story from the younger main character. Who, to this day, takes childish glee from villains who are evil simply because they're evil, and not because of some tragic backstory. Who, to this day, is filling her characters with varying degrees of moral ambiguity, and tends to enjoy those ones more than the straight-laced heroes.
On a note more related to my general life, Inkheart was also filled to the brim with a head-over-heels adoration for books. The house described in the book, with books stacked floor to ceiling throughout, is kind of my dream mansion. And the fact that by the third book, Meggie (yes, her name was really Meggie, it was basically a book written for me, about me) is learning to write her own stuff rather than just read it, and even early on the writer, Fenoglio, is arguably one of the heroes of the story... and here I am, years later, laptop filled with stories no one ever asked me to write.
I think it's fair to say that this book was a pretty big influence in my impressionable years.
The other thing is, I'm just going to say it: Inkspell and Inkdeath weren't nearly as good. It was cool, I guess, to see the Inkheart world play out, but by that point there were so many storylines going on that had basically nothing to do with each other that I couldn't tell you a single solid thing that happens in either of them, and it made recreational reading a little bit exhausting, trying to remember everything that was going on.
But Inkheart. Inkheart, O Inkheart. It is a book of pure magic and brilliance, and the best thing about it? The ending has enough closure that I can safely pretend that the sequels didn't happen, if I want to.
While we're at it, let's pretend the movie didn't happen either. That was a harrowing experience.
The Thief Lord - Cornelia Funke
Yeah, for a while there, Cornelia Funke was my favourite author. The Thief Lord was, I believe, the first book I read by her, and that one was very important in the things that I found myself fantasizing about.
It was important because, A) Prospero and Bo are probably one of my favourite sets of siblings, and as much as I love Bo for his innocence, as an older sibling I related to Prospero far more. B) as much as I love the evil-because-they're-evil villains - and I do, which I can only explain by saying that my childhood fantasies were full of them and I do feel a certain nostalgia for that simplicity - I also have a soft spot for villains who aren't really villains, but are only antagonists because they're on the wrong side of the plot - like the detective who, in the end, is really only doing his job. It sucks that Prospero and Bo have to go back to people who hate them (or, as I recall, they loved Bo and hated Prospero, but had to get them as a package because custody wouldn't let them split them up... but I could be wrong about that), but it isn't really the detective's fault that he was hired to find them.
And finally, in the most obvious impact it had on me.... I daydreamed about Venice on many an occasion after reading this book. It's impossible not to. Funke clearly thinks Venice is beautiful, because it's one of the first things you hear about and it comes up maybe every three pages, and now I can safely say, having been there largely because of this book... she's right. About all of it. Venice is where magic is born.
I even got a souvenir to honour The Thief Lord. I got a mask, one of the ones with the long noses, like the kind that Scipio wears when he meets with the other kids.
Percy Jackson (books 1-5) - Rick Riordan
This one's slightly superficial in the influence it had on me, but as well as generally being a book that I always found extremely fun, and entertaining, and kind of hilarious, it was also the beginning of my obsession with Greek mythology.
And I can safely say, looking back years later, as a human encyclopedia of Greek myths, having written a book set in Ancient Greece for that exact purpose, that to be the thing that got me started there is kind of a big deal. Because I am as passionate about Greek mythology as I am about, well, anything else in my life, and that came from this.
So thanks, Riordan, for letting me discover something that I can revel in.
Also, like Inkheart, we do not discuss the movies. Ugh.
Artemis Fowl (books 1-3) - Eoin Colfer (it's pronounced Owen, apparently)
Now, let me be clear: there are eight books in the Artemis Fowl series. And I adore every single one of them with all of my heart. I can go into detail about why I love each one. The series isn't complete without them all. But I'm only going to talk about the first three books here, because I don't think the books after the third one were really influential in the same way, wonderful as they were. I think it's just a matter of time, and when I was at my peak absorption rate. (It also might be because I wasn't as blown away by the fourth book as I was by the third, so it's hard to consider it as influential as the others).
So, books 1-3.
Firstly, and importantly: the books are all about intellect. The whole series is. There are... at least five geniuses by the end of the series. And, being the sort of kid who took great pride in doing well in school and being "gifted", I greatly enjoyed reading stuff where everything relied on the characters being smart. This would not be the last series I read to focus on that, either. More on that later, though.
Mostly what I remember from the first reading of the first book is that it left me really... confused. I enjoyed it for its individual scenes, but couldn't quite grasp it as a whole, and that was because, as far as I remember, it was the first book I'd ever read where the protagonist and the antagonist weren't exactly clear-cut. It started from Artemis's perspective, but he was clearly not a good guy. Then again, there are scenes clearly meant to evoke sympathy for him. Then again, he's kidnapping a fairy. Then again, the fairies aren't exactly innocent themselves, hence them ultimately trying to kill everyone in the house. When I was in my evil-because-they're-evil-type-villains phase, this was really confusing. Who was the villain? Who was the hero? Artemis was the winner, but he was bad, wasn't he?
The second book (The Arctic Incident) was much easier for me to get, because it painted both the fairies and Artemis in a much more heroic light. It didn't undo what had been done in the first book, and in fact, a lot of it was driven from the events of the first book, but it introduced a common antagonist for both Artemis and the fairies, which meant that there was no longer any confusion in who I was meant to be rooting for. And it was because I enjoyed that adventure so thoroughly that I was convinced to revisit the first book.
And boy am I ever glad I did. With just that little bit of maturity, just a little more openness to colours between white and black, (desperately avoiding a Shades of Grey pun here) it suddenly moved from confusing to really interesting - and ultimately, extremely entertaining (the humour remains one of my favourite things about the series). I also think re-reading it was a good idea in general, because there's just... a lot of information being thrown at you, as well as a lot of sort of Chekhov's Gun sort of stuff. When you catch it on the re-read, it's way more fun.
So, moving into the third book, I had a way better understanding of the characters and where they fit on the hero-villain spectrum (the first time I'd ever come to recognize it as any sort of spectrum at all), and allowed me to just appreciate it for what it was. And that third book, The Eternity Code, remains one of my favourite books in the series, possibly my single favourite book in the series. And part of the reason I love this book so much is because, for once, Artemis can't actually do anything about what's happening to him. It was really cool to see a situation where, for all of Artemis's intellect, he was essentially helpless. The whole book involves other people trying to help him - following his instructions, perhaps, but ultimately, he can't help himself. This is reflected first when Spiro kidnaps him, and secondly when the fairies insist on mind-wiping him. And this is a storytelling thing that has stuck with me to this day - I can name many of my favourite works where at least one of the protagonists are completely helpless. Something about it hits me, and this is the first book I can recall where that happened so blatantly.
So yeah, there was a lot of door-opening stuff happening in Artemis Fowl for me.
Misery - Stephen King
Speaking of the protagonist being helpless.
I sometimes think of this book as my first Stephen King book, but that isn't quite true. My first Stephen King book was The Dark Half. Misery was, however, my first Stephen King book I ever had that I-don't-want-it-to-end-but-I-can't-stop-reading-it thing going on (it would not be the last).
I had never before seen the inner monologue rendered quite like this. It was quite something for thirteen-year-old me to experience.
And at least two thirds of the book is entirely Paul's thoughts. It has to be - by the very nature of the story, Paul is alone in bed, unable to move for a lot of the book. That makes for a lot of inner monologue. It could have been dreadfully boring.
Instead it was, and still probably is, the most compelling book I'd ever read.
Just, to watch him descend, so slowly, so naturally, into Annie's madness, until the reader understands exactly what Paul means when he thinks about the Bourka Bee-Goddess or Scheherazade, or Cthulhu, or "Now I must rinse." It's nonsense, but you get it anyway, because he's led you there. And at the very end, when you hear it all from an outside character's perspective - for a single chapter we see Paul from the point of view of a cop happening upon the scene - you suddenly understand just how mad it all is, and it's shocking and eye-opening and heartbreaking. It's such a journey.
Stephen King's inner monologue is one of my favourite things. With all its tangents and forays into pop culture and sentences that go on forever. It's very truthful to how the human mind works, I find, and at the time when I first read it, it seemed to me to be an extremely innovative piece of writing. I admit, I try to channel that style a little when my own characters are in moments of high stress.
Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco Stork
I don't think this was the first "teen" book I ever read and enjoyed, but it was definitely one of the first. I found - and often still do - that teen books tended to revolve around romance too much, and that just was not something I found compelling at all. Usually, I still don't.
This book has a bit of romance, but without it being all-consuming, and with a far more important plotline.
Because, most significantly, the main character, Marcelo, is autistic.
The book is in first person from his perspective, and is all about Marcelo becoming increasingly independent and how he handles it. As someone with an autistic brother, it was a really interesting read.
(And I know that people are going to think of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which is a fine book and all, but I honestly like this book better. I prefer this one because it deals with the whole "real world" thing - how are disabled people going to handle it if they aren't being coddled? - in a way that The Curious Incident doesn't. Also, I found Marcelo's family drama to be much more realistic - and therefore, more interesting to see Marcelo react to - than Christopher's, while still handling basically the same issue, i.e getting people off the pedestal. But that's just me).
Anyways, that was the first time I'd ever seen a really compelling novel that was so realistic and not-fantasy, and it hit pretty close to home because of its general subject matter. So that was important.
Stargirl, and also Love, Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl, was a book which many people I know loved, but I just couldn't because I couldn't stand the character whose perspective we stay with for the entire book. Love, Stargirl was extremely interesting because it was kind of a sequel, but also kind of a character study.
For clarity's sake, I'll explain some basics of Stargirl. The first book is about a boy who goes to a normal school and spends a lot of time trying to fit in and be normal. Then this new girl shows up, who calls herself "Stargirl." She's the kind of girl who, for instance, calls herself Stargirl, and changes her name at her whim, and her family and parents just go with it. She's very whimsical and creative and unafraid to be exactly what she is. It isn't exactly in defiance of normalcy, or to make any sort of point, but sort of parallel to normalcy - she's honestly only doing it because she's expressing herself. Anyway, the main character kind of... falls in love with her? I guess? And they have a brief thing, but ultimately he rejects her because he can't stand to be so outside the norm all the time. It is framed as the biggest mistake of his life.
I couldn't stand the first book, because, as much affection as I felt for Stargirl, I couldn't for the life of me stand the main character, because rejecting people for one's own reputation has just never sat well with me. Still, I'm listing it as influential because I did have such a negative reaction to it, and it led me to understand the very idealist perspective I still have, which is that we should embrace our eccentricities and quirks and the eccentricities and quirks of other people. I was very aggressive about this, originally, largely as a reaction to Stargirl - I was not going to be the asshole that the main character of that book was, and I was going to call someone out on it if they were.
Love, Stargirl was much gentler, and I enjoyed it much more not least because the narrator is Stargirl herself. And because Stargirl is such an eccentric yet accepting character, it helped that aggression about self-expression sort of die down a little, and become more about, just, doing your own thing.
The reason I have to list these books in tandem is this: Stargirl, the first, introduced me to the idea of, shall we say, peaceful protest - my first interpretation was that Stargirl was deliberately being the way she was to show up the sheeple, if you will, and that's what I emulated because I loved that character and wanted to be like her. Love, Stargirl kind of completed my education, there, because since Stargirl really was just doing it for herself, and because of her own actual gentleness toward other people, I got significantly less aggressive in my attempts to be different and ended up being more... myself.
I credit the assertive self-expression of my middle school years at least in part to these books.
The Mysterious Benedict Society (book 1) - Trenton Lee Stewart
Remember how, when I was talking about Artemis Fowl, I mentioned that it wouldn't be the last book series I ever read to put such an intense emphasis on intellect? This is the other one.
Now, there are three books in the series (the third of which, being one of my favourites, follows the trend of helpless heroes which I already talked about with Artemis Fowl... there are patterns in the things I respond to). But I'm only counting the first one as "influential" because I can't trace anything about myself back to either of those books in the same way. I read them and I adore them, but I can't think of anything about myself that they opened the doors for.
So, the first one.
As I mentioned, it's intensely an advocate for intellect, but it isn't quite as... singular in the definition of intellect as, for instance, Artemis Fowl is. All four of the main characters are portrayed as extremely competent and/or genius, depending on your perspective, but they definitely specialize differently. One character, Sticky, is probably the closest to conventional academic intelligence, in that he has a great memory and knows just about everything about, well, just about anything. One other character, Reynie (who serves as the audience's eyes as well for most of the series) is fairly academic as well, although not quite in the same way. Reynie's much more about being clever than being knowledgeable - he's not one for memorizing facts the way Sticky is, he can't give a lecture about history or science in the same way, but he's always the quickest to solve a riddle or puzzle because he has that gift of thinking outside the box.
But aside from these academic powerhouses, we're also met with Kate, who is all about the physical and all about the emotional all the time, but she's seen as gifted just the same. And Constance, whose intelligence is, perhaps, hard to pin down, but it all becomes clear by the end. Let's just say her area of specialty isn't exactly conventional either, but she is undeniably a genius.
And the thing is... I admired all these characters. I, the academically driven girl who still (to my detriment, I suppose,) likes to place intellectualism as one of my defining traits, found myself reading about Kate with just as much admiration as I looked at Reynie. In order to accept this book, I had to shelf intellectual elitism for a bit, and that was a good thing.
That being said, this fed my love affair with "being gifted" as much as anything else. Just because I widened my perspective on how, exactly, someone could be gifted, doesn't mean that I came to value that any less. ARE YOU A GIFTED CHILD LOOKING FOR SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES? asks the first flap of this book, and I'm not sure any one sentence has ever caught my imagination quite as quickly.
The other thing is that this book is not quite fantasy - if anything, I suppose there are some science fiction elements - but more than anything, it's... surrealist, I suppose. This isn't the first book I'd ever read to have surrealism in place of a solid "real world" or "fantasy world" - I think the Series of Unfortunate Events pretty much has that covered. It is, however, the first surrealist book I'd ever read that didn't draw attention to its own quirks on purpose. It's sort of the equivalent of deadpan, if that could be conveyed through writing. Personally, I'm a big fan of deadpan.
(Tangent: Actually, after thinking about it, I'd consider the Series of Unfortunate Events to be a necessary prelude, at least for me, to understand The Mysterious Benedict Society - it gets one used to a surrealist world, it reveres being smart in quite the same way, and some of the humour is very similar, though it's less deadpan and more with a wink toward the audience. However, the main difference, I would say, is that The Mysterious Benedict Society doesn't talk down to you in quite the same way - there are clever in-jokes throughout the book that I only just caught on this year's re-read. That's nothing against the Series of Unfortunate Events, the footnotes and explanations to the audience are part of its humour and charm, just as the assumption by The Mysterious Benedict Society that people will get the references is part of its particular charm.)
I guess why I think The Mysterious Benedict Society was influential was because, while it did address things that had been done before - surrealism, humour, focus on intellect, etcetera - it tackled them in very different ways from how I'd seen it before. And that's a really cool thing to discover, because, though this book has some similarities to the Series of Unfortunate Events and Artemis Fowl and a variety of other things, it can't be called a rip-off of any of them. It's entirely its own identity. I've never read a book like it and probably never will again.
It had me playing around with the style of my writing, for sure.
So, yeah. Those are the books I would say most influenced me as a writer and as a person. (You may also take it as a list of recommendations if you wish - every book on here is awesome in its own very special way. I've re-read every single one at least twice, so age is no object).
I just thought that was interesting to think about.
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