Aesthetics and writers

 The conversation was about authors we don’t like. My friend doesn’t like a lot of bestsellers, and he doesn’t like most of the famous authors he was told he was supposed to like.

His tastes, like mine, run toward quirky books, written by people with distinct personalities, individual voices.

I can get through a lot of literature, but for something magical to happen I must have some feeling for the writer and his or her concerns.

Years ago, I read a comment by someone who dropped in on the poet Gary Snyder. Snyder’s concern at the moment was a wildcat that had gotten into his chickens.

I can get interested in the concerns — the life, the myths, the images — of a poet like that. That doesn’t mean I like everything Snyder has written. But I can get interested in what a person like that might be doing.