On the first day of class, I mentioned Roberto Bolano as a writer whose style interested me. Considering him further, I think it is his willingness to 'experiment' and not assign himself to one style or another, which makes his voice slip effortlessly not only from the young and drug-addled, to jaded yet serene old men, to women and madmen, but from inside minds, to diaries, interviews, character studies and reports of plot and action.
Over the summer I picked up F. Scott Fitzgerald again. I noticed his style's composure, no matter the scenario, which at times seemed to maintain a distance between the narration and the action or the characters. Yet while observing his characters and their lives from afar, he still creates them with affection or endows them with something lurking and sinister. In doing so, he remains cool and proper-seeming without becoming overly objective or removed.
I do not know which author or whose style I would wish to emulate, as I have not consciously experimented in any style for a long enough time to learn which create exhaustion or openness in my hands and energies.
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