"It is only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives"--Graham Greene
"The luminous books of our childhood will remain the luminous books of our lives."--Joyce Carol Oates
Writers, as they often attest, are deeply influenced by their childhood reading. Salman Rushdie, for example, has said that The Wizard of Oz "made a writer of me." Twice-Told Tales is a collection of essays on the way the works of adult writers have been influenced by their childhood reading. This fascinating volume includes theoretical essays on Salman Rushdie and the Oz books, "Beauty and the Beast" retold as Jane Eyre, the childhood reading of Jorge Luis Borges, and the remnants of nursery rhymes in Sylvia Plath's poetry. It is supplemented with a number of brief commentaries on children's books by major creative writers, including Maxine Hong Kingston and Maxine Kumin.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction "Points of intersection ..."; the-influence-of-childhood-reading The Influence of Childhood Reading, Betty Greenway; Part 1 "To drift in the currents of my unconscious ..."; Chapter 1 A Child's-Eye Reading of Mark Twain, Madison Smartt Bell; Part 2 The place was full of books ..."; Chapter 2 Borges and Georgie, Kimberly A. Nance; Chapter 3 Lonely Impulse of Delight, Dana Gioia; Chapter 4 All the Stuff, Antonya Nelson; Chapter 5 Taking Flight, Ira Sadoff; Chapter 6 Bad Habits, Lee K. Abbott; Part 3 "Wake me up in Wonderland and Whoville and Oz ..."; Chapter 7 A Writer on the Yellow Brick Road, Justyna Deszcz-Try Hubczak; Chapter 8 The Pudding, the Witch, and the Titan, Sabina Murray; Chapter 9 Fantastic Fellow-Travelers, X. J. Kennedy; Part 4 "The essential eternal stories ..."; Chapter 10 "Grains of Truth in the Wildest Fable", Christine Butterworth-Mcdermott; Chapter 11 Pictures First, Barry Unsworth; Chapter 12 Essential and Eternal, Penelope Lively; Chapter 13 Silver Chief, John Mcphee; Part 5 "Whose echoes seem ineradicable ..."; Chapter 14 Higgledy Piggledy, Gobbledygoo, Luanne Castle; Chapter 15 Corrupting Children, W. D. Snodgrass; Chapter 16 Cuentos, Rudolfo Anaya; Chapter 17 Ineradicable Echoes, Charles Wright; Part 6 "The luminous symbol of innocence ..."; Chapter 18 "Wonders Wild and New", Carolyn Sigler; Chapter 19 Dreamhouse Revisited, Alison Habens; Part 7 "An impossible idealism ..."; Chapter 20 Mapping the Soupsweet Land, Hope Howell Hodgkins; Chapter 21 Sheba's Breasts, D.M. Thomas; Chapter 22 E. Nesbit and Primrose Gumming, Maxine Kumin; Part 8 "Recuperated loss ..."; Chapter 23 Punch Reads Aunt Judy, Judith A. Plotz; Chapter 24 Three Men in a Boat, Andrei Codrescu; Chapter 25 Cowboys and Poets, C.K. Williams; Part 9 "I could become a writer too ..."; Chapter 26 Transmutations of Folktale and School Story in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Jacqueline L. Gmuca; Chapter 27 New Year's Day, Year of the Horse, Maxine Hong Kingston; Part 10 "To wash up
