14/10/2001 - 10:34 p.m.

Literary devices (Hey, I know why it's funny!)

(Advisory, if you're not too intimate with works of great literature and their authors, this entry may not make too much sense.)

I wish F. Scott Fitzgerald weren't dead. It would be wonderful to live in the 20's and just know that he was alive and he and Zelda were off having a great time and he was writing fabulous books. I really think he must have been a splendid man. I just finished watching this documentary about him, and I've read Winter Dreams and The Great Gatsby, and I have this wonderful image of him. He's a writer who looks like he ought to look.

I have this thing about not wanting to see pictures of authors. Charles Dickens was such a dissapointment to me- I always think of him as about twenty five and looking much like Fred always does in A Chrismas Carol. I was extremely disturbed to discover that he was an ugly old man with a long beard. Since this time, I have tried to avoid pictures of authors at all costs, but I'm glad that Fitzgerald looks the way he should. Handsome, pale, and blonde with green blue eyes, I wouldn't want him to look any other way.

Hemingway looks the way he should too, he looks like he's gone out and killed an elephant and drunk too much; like he's been to Cuba and spoken bad Spanish; like he's been to a bullfight and enjoyed it.

Arthur Conan Doyle is another dissapointment. He ought to look more like his description of Holmes (someone certainly should, the movies can never get him right): tall and lithe with a hooked nose, deep set eyes, thin lips and a high forehead.

I have never seen JD Salinger, but I hope that he looks rather like my friend Nick: dark hair, eyes and complexion, thin faced, basically funny and intelligent looking.

Robert Frost is another who looks wrong, he needs to look less like a pudding and more like an aging Michael Palin. (If that makes sense to anyone.)

Now, what's really odd, is that this whole author thing only applies to men. But then, most women authors all look alike (the ones I read at least). Emily Dickenson looks very much like George Eliot and the Bronte sisters (don't read Whuthering Heights, it sucks), and all the other women authors.

But then, I don't fall in love with the women. I really get hung up on authors and characters and things sometimes. Fitzgerald- last year I was deeply in love with him (he was obviously intelligent, extremely good looking, a writer, what's not to love?). Two years before that, Eugene in Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" (though I think the actor had a little to do with that too). For a while the year before that there was Sherlock Holmes. I eventually ended that one (and I was 13 or 14 at the time) with the idea that even if he were alive, the age difference would be too great, and anyhow, he probably wouldn't have anyone except Irene Adler. Aragorn from Tolkien (I'm hesitant on seeing the movie because I don't think I'm altogether impressed that the characters live up to my imagined ideals). A long time ago in middle school (before I discovered what he looked like) I was in love with Charles Dickens. I'm currently falling in love with Jack Kerouac (if he looks the way I think he does- it could all be shattered if I found out what he really looked like).

There are those people who say that I'm just a tad nuts for thinking like this. People can go absolutely crazy over film and music stars- what's wrong with the literary world that it's weird to be slightly obsessive about them? I mean, exchange the names I've used with oh, let's think, Heath Ledger or any of the Backstreet Boys (remember, I'm not what one might call up to date on this type of thing, so if I'm absolutely last week, just pretend you understand what I'm on about), or something like that, and then what I'm saying is normal. Well, I'm just more exposed to books than music and movies.

Seriously, I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't marry a writer. (Well, yes I do, I'll probably die old and lonely and dead, but that's beside the point.) I can at least understand people who write. People who despise the written word puzzle me. How can they exist on a day to day basis? What enlightens them? ('Religion' whispers in the back of my mind, and I nod, but in disbelief.) Heck, if I marry a writer, then he'll definately look the way he ought to look, and I can read his work in peace, even if it's not much to read. Of course, as it is, all the ones who look right I've fallen in love with because their writing it lovely too, so I guess when I meet a writer who looks right I'll like his stuff. That's comforting to think about, knowing what I know. (Bet you wish you knew what I did, huh? Well, you'll have to guess.)

Well, it's 11: 43, and I've taken quite a long while to write this (inturruptions aside), and I've got a little bit to add to the story, so I think I'll do that as long as it's burning into me right now.