My Favorite Author

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been a lifelong avid reader. Not surprisingly, my favorite authors have changed over the years. When I was very young, I might have chosen books by A.A. Milne (famous for his Winnie-the-Pooh books, although I loved his poetry), Margret & H.A. Rey (authors of the Curious George books), Dr. Seuss, and Richard Scarry (author of the Busytown books). In my older childhood, I enjoyed books by Judy Blume, Laura Ingalls Wilder (famous for the Little House on the Prairie series), Beverly Cleary (who I was familiar with because of the books in the Ramona series), and Laura Lee Hope (pseudonym for the authors of the syndicated Bobbsey Twins series).

As a teen and adult reader, my tastes changed. I spent a lot of time during these years reading “the classics,” especially in high school and college. I can’t say Homer’s epic poems made him a favorite author of mine, nor did Shakespeare’s poetry or plays. Instead, my tastes skewed more towards the contemporary fiction genre. Some favorite authors from these years include John Irving and Amy Tan. While I’ve read a lot of works by these authors, I haven’t read all of their books, and some of them resonated more strongly with me than others.

I was also introduced to an author during this time who has remained a favorite throughout my adulthood. That author is Anne Tyler. She is perhaps best known for The Accidental Tourist, which was made into a major motion picture starring Geena Davis, William Hurt, and Kathleen Turner. According to Tyler’s website, this book also made it to #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. The book is about an author of tour guides for reluctant travelers, and it follows the ups-and-downs of his relationships with two different women. I enjoyed it mostly for its portrayal of quirky characters and complicated human relationships, which is typical of Tyler’s novels.

Geena Davis won an Oscar for performing in The Accidental Tourist. (Flickr/Alan Light)

Tyler’s website shows several of her other books have also made it onto the New York Times Best Seller list, although no others have made it to #1. However, her site does show that one of her books won a Pulitzer Prize. In short, she is an acclaimed writer, which does not mean she is beloved by everyone. Critics complain about her books being too similar to each other. They want her to write about different subject matter than quirky people and their quirky lives. In my opinion, if she were to do this, she would not be writing an Anne Tyler novel, and the main purpose of her writing would be lost.

According to her official biography, Tyler was born in Minneapolis and grew up in North Carolina. Her website shows that she has written 22 novels in all, with a 23rd scheduled to be released later this year. I also see on her website that she published a short story not too long ago that is only available as an e-book. I’ll have to learn more about that one. So far, I’ve read every book she’s published, and I’d hate for this one to break my record!

Tyler is known for setting her novels in and around Baltimore. As I’ve already mentioned, she’s also known for her quirky characters. To me, these characters help readers see that run-of-the-mill, ordinary people usually aren’t so run-of-the-mill and ordinary after all. In her books, people who seem nondescript or uninteresting at first glance usually reveal deeper musings, entanglements, and complications when we’re able to delve into their inner lives.

The first of her books I read was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant in ninth grade English. I remember being drawn to the somewhat chaotically interlocking story lines of the various characters in the book. Their conversations and thoughts illustrated the conflicts within families that are so often hidden from public view. From then on, I was hooked on Anne Tyler’s books.

I felt incredibly fortunate to take an entire course on Tyler’s work when I was in college. It was thrilling to me that a faculty member in the Rollins College English Department turned out to have a soft spot for Anne Tyler, just like me. That professor, Barbara Carson (now Child), had even published on Tyler’s writing. I never knew before this point that something a person found fun could also form the basis of scholarly study.

I remember how intense this course was. It was a winter term course, which meant it was the only course I took during the month of January. Anne Tyler hadn’t yet written 22 books at that time, but her list of published novels was sizeable, and as I remember it, we read all of them. I worked hard to keep up with the reading, but I was also in heaven. What a joy it was to be able to read nothing but my favorite author for a whole month and get credit for it!

Dr. Carson was so enthusiastic about the books. It was a first for me, to be let in on a faculty member’s favorite reading experiences. Oh sure, some faculty members are lucky enough to be able to pick some favorites each semester, but not always. For example, maybe someone who loves contemporary fiction is stuck teaching British Literature I for a semester. That person’s students won’t get to share favorites in that class! So, to read nothing but Dr. Carson’s favorites for the whole course was such a unique opportunity. I felt privileged to gain insights into her thoughts about Tyler’s body of work as a whole.

I’d have to go back to my class notes, which I can’t find right now (if I even still have them), to remember the discussions we had about each of the books. I’m sure we covered some of the common themes found in Tyler’s writing: feminism, life in Baltimore, and family dramas, to name a few. Coming of age is another theme Tyler often writes about, as is the misfit experience. I remember at the end of the month, Dr. Carson invited the whole class to her house for a celebration. I don’t remember the details of what we ate or drank, but I do remember being impressed by her generosity in having us over.

After this winter term course, I focused in particular on one book, The Clock Winder, and I made it the centerpiece of my senior honors thesis. My thesis project involved learning about theories of teaching and then applying them to actually teaching my peers. I taught The Clock Winder over several class sessions in one of my thesis adviser’s courses. I thought this book would be a good choice because it focuses on a college-aged person’s journey of self-discovery. I liked the book and thought my peers would, too.

However, I can’t say my peers loved the book as much as I did. They had a hard time relating to the main character’s personality, and I remember my adviser, Roy Starling, who I’ve written about before, consoling me about the situation. He helped me understand that teachers often have these missed connections with their students and that the key to moving on is to maintain a sense of humor about it. This gave me a valuable insight into not only teaching but into human relationships in general.

I know I haven’t done justice to Anne Tyler’s novels here. I guess I didn’t intend to. This wasn’t meant to be an in-depth review or literary analysis of her works. However, I hope I’ve given you a sense of what brought me to enjoy her novels and maybe tempted you into reading some of them yourself.

Frightful Australian Wildfires

Like many around the world, I’ve been interested in and concerned by the Australian wildfires that started in September and still continue. The images making their way around the internet of fire-reddened skies, burned-out houses, and singed koalas are both sorrowful and frightening. Yesterday, I noticed a new story about the possibility of floods and mudslides from heavy rains in fire-affected areas. This seems like one more potentially devastating problem for the country to deal with in an already stressful time.

According to the news reports I’ve seen, the fires have been spread out mostly along the eastern part of Australia, in the states of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria. Northern Queensland is home to Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Daintree Rainforest. New South Wales houses Sydney, the Blue Mountains National Park, and the Hunter Valley wine region. South Australia holds Adelaide, Coober Pedy (where people live underground and mine for opals), and Flinders Ranges National Park. Victoria is where Melbourne is located (host of the Australian Open tennis tournament), as well as Grampians National Park, Lake Tyres State Park, the Great Ocean Road (where the 12 Apostles limestone formations can be found in Port Campbell National Park), and Phillip Island Nature Park (home to Fairy Penguins, also known as Little Penguins, the smallest known penguin species).

States Map of Australia (Wikimedia/Richard Russell and Dominic Dwyer)

When I was in college, I spent a semester exploring these areas and many others as a study abroad student. Although the program’s home base was in Melbourne, my fellow students and I were fortunate to take both school-sponsored and independent trips during our time there. I will be forever thankful to Hoyt Edge, the Rollins College professor and mentor who suggested I pursue the opportunity to study in Australia during my senior year rather than graduate a year early, an option I was seriously considering.

The friendships I made with my fellow study abroad students have been among the longest lasting I’ve experienced in my life. Although we don’t often see each other in person, we keep in touch via holiday cards, Facebook, and LinkedIn. When I recently made a major life change, one of them offered me a place to stay if I needed it. Another drove an hour each way with two young children in the car to meet me when I was vacationing near her home.

I remember plenty of fun times with these friends during our semester abroad. In addition to the trips we took, we picnicked in the park together, went to concerts together (Yothu Yindi and The Cure), we saw movies (The Power of One and Strictly Ballroom), went dancing, and ate lunch together in the cafeteria every school day. We talked during classes about themes in Australian literature, about environmentalism in Australia, and about various cultural philosophies in Australia. Between classes, we discussed our day-to-day lives, our homesickness, and our culture shock. We thought together of the things we would miss most when we were no longer in Australia, such as Anzac biscuits, the “No Worries” attitude, and daily tram rides.

Are these connections and memories the only reason I care about the fires in Australia? Certainly it pains me to think of the places I visited being affected by fire. Is the mountain I climbed in Grampians National Park still topped by trees, or have the trees burned? What about where we sat around a campfire in Lake Tyres State Park and listened to Aboriginal elders tell stories? Is that area charred now? And how are those tiny penguins doing on Phillip Island? Also, the Blue Mountains have been in the news as having been affected, and I had an almost spiritual connection to that place when I visited, so I wonder how different it looks now.

I hope these are not the only reasons I care. I hope my caring also stems from a broader-reaching concern about the Earth and its inhabitants. For example, when it comes to the cause of the fires, people are offering a few different explanations. Many blame climate change. Some have claimed arson was involved. Either way, I feel concern. If climate change is the cause, what are we doing to save the only known humanly-inhabitable place in our universe? And if arson was involved, what are we doing to educate people to avoid deliberately harming the only planet we know of where we can live?

But, I not only wonder what we are doing as humans overall, I also wonder what I am doing. Not much, I’m afraid. And this is what the Australian wildfires remind me. What can I do to be a positive influence in the world?