Centroids : Here is an interesting puzzle. What are the three books you wish you had written ? For the moment I don't have a list that comes immediately to mind, but it is worth thinking about as a sort of self critique and as a means of telling others what our ideals are and what we would like others to consider for their own lives. The nice thing about this exercise is that it is open to all comers. My three choices aren't the only right answers, nor are anyone else's. And someone else's choices may influence me or you or whomever, all for the good. That is, it is non zero-sum and win / win. For your consideration Billy ============================================================ Washington Post / September 15, 2009 _Dirda's Reading Room _ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/groups/index.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:a70e3396-66 63-4a8d-ba19-e44939d3c44fForum:6ffbcf5f- e39d-4d52-a396-72bccac13f54Discussion:193ef7c5-25da-4e77-bb46-1471c151f940&hpid=talkbox1#none) » Which Books Do You Wish You Wrote? _Michael_Dirda_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/mypost/index.html?newspaperUserId=michael_dirda&plckUserId=michael_dirda) Some years ago I read an essay by the critic Denis Donoghue in which he mentioned the three books he would most like to have written himself: Italo Svevo’s Confessions of Zeno, Kenneth Burke’s Toward a Better Life, and Robert K. Merton’s On the Shoulders of Giants. I’ve read all three—though I was disappointed in the Burke—and see an ironic, self-aware and playful voice as the common element among them.
Naturally, I wondered which three of the world’s books I might like to have written. Obviously, the memoirs of Casanova would be at the head of the list, followed by the autobiography of Bill Gates, and the Declaration of Independence. Hmm, does that last count as a book? Just kidding, folks. Well, maybe not about the Casanova. In fact, I suspect my choices would be: Cyril Connolly’s “The Unquiet Grave”—a little volume of plangent meditations and quotations about life; Robert Graves’s crazed handbook of poetic myth, “The White Goddess”; and Denis Diderot’s “Rameau’s Nephew,” his sprightly dialogue with a consummate rogue and charlatan. Of course, tomorrow or next week I might choose three completely different works. But how about you? What three of the world’s books would you most like to have written? Which give at least a partial portrait of your soul?
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