Another Post...

...On the amazing Donna Tartt

Her short writings aren't even as good as her longer works, but this tribute to her mentor, Willie Morris, is so well written I had to share it. I got a little teary reading it.

Also, a word of advice about her books: They are really fun, entertaining reads (which is why they sell so well) but she sometimes uses words in different ways, so look up unknown words to find the definition that fits the context. I sound like an English teacher, but she draws on her vast and sometimes obscure knowledge of words in her writing, making a dictionary necessary from time to time.

In "The Secret History" she throws in a lot of classics references and references to other books for literary buffs. I looove it!

Some quotes from her tribute to Willie Morris:

"The truth was more complicated, and had to do with that raw, gigantic, intensely tender heart of his which he seldom guarded or protected in any way but left right on the surface for the world to scratch at. What drink could palliate those ancient, chilling sorrows that settled over him? "

"Never will I forget my naive astonishment at discovering that there existed another person who loved words in much the same sputtering and agonised way that I did, who fought them and cursed them and cried over them and stood back, dazzled and agog in admiration of them. After all those years isolated in my hometown, shut up in my bedroom reading books, I had thought I was the only person in the world so afflicted. "