Source for image and contest are contained herein.

I consider myself a fairly well-read person. I consider myself a fairly sociable person, too, and I suppose in this matter people and books are very much alike: that is, no matter how far and wide your scope of acquaintances may roam, there will only be a few that are close enough to be friends, to sustain a marked and lasting influence on your life. So with people, so with books - because after all, the source of influence is not mere words on paper, but those words as an expression of the experience of a person, of a human soul. It is not such a surprising thing that people are such close kin to books.

All this to say, I may read far and wide all I wish; when asking personally about the authors and works I love, the smallness of scope and inescapable overlap is painfully obvious. In my post on Chesterton, I hope it was obvious how much that author has influenced me in terms of style, plot, characterization... But Chesterton is too big for this post; it will not contain him. Chesterton has shaken my ways of going about most things, not just writing. Most of the people I read - and love - are that way, but I thought to highlight one that has most obviously and directly had an impact on style. That, after all, is what the question asks.

It is impossible to find a picture where this fellow doesn't look dour. Source.

You probably know him as "A.A.Milne," if you are fortunate enough to have read him or heard of him at all. He is the man responsible for crafting the fantastical tales of Winnie-ther-Pooh. Allow me to insert a caveat, or a commendation, or a desperate plea: If you are only familiar with Winnie-ther-Pooh as a result of (unfortunate) exposure to various Disney productions, STOP. I have seen the type of trivialized nonsense that those hideous rip-offs have become, and they are not on par with Milne's writing. When I speak of being influenced by Milne, that is nothing remotely close to being influenced by the Disney children's series. I am sure they are very good sorts of movies in their own way, but they have run down the road of the Slapstick and the Stereotypical. Eeyore is now a symbol for the Cutely Emo... buh. I am sorry if I am insulting anyone's childhood favorite; it is just that your childhood favorite (the movies) insult mine (the book). I will not try to talk you out of your appreciation of the films, but please - go read the original stories. Hilarity and wit abounding in a children's book in ways that we have lost (since children, apparently, are supposed to be incapable of rational thought nowadays).

He's probably so tight-lipped and sour-looking because he just saw a Disney adaptation. Source.

Onwards! How, you ask,does reading Winnie-ther-Pooh influence somebody's style? Well - two things. The first is the clever way of writing for children while writing for adults. Milne's writing grows with the reader. One may read it at six, and find it funny; come back at ten, and find it funnier still; return yet again at sixteen, and realize one's ability to breathe has been replaced by one's compulsion to laugh. This practice of writing at so many levels that one cannot distinguish where they begin and end, one only knows that they are enjoyable at them all - I cannot say it has influenced my style to the point where I can emulate it perfectly, but it has certainly compelled me to write children's stories in such a way that they read "upwards."

On another utterly-non-fangirlish note, doesn't he look like Wimsey from the good adaptations? Source.

Secondly, Milne's prose is funny, and it isn't simply because he's cracking jokes all the time. The way he uses words - period - is hilarious, with that sort of unconscious hilarity that children have. Perhaps this is why children may laugh at it, and be content to listen to it, and yet never fully get it until they grow up. Only Milne's humor takes a new depths, because Milne knows just how funny he is being - and yet he goes on, quite seriously, talking about Woozles and Heffalumps and Pooh and Piglet stumping round and round a tree counting their own tracks multiplying... It is this ability to make fun of oneself in an innocently self-deprecating fashion that seized my attention when I read him years later as a writer. The idea that one can be funny in a roundabout way by using words a little carelessly, but with intention - it had never struck me before. The only unfortunate side of this is that when I am most aware that I have been writing in this way, that is generally the time that somebody marks the section and adds "Badly written. Sounds really pretentious." ...and my response is, "yeah, I kind of wanted to - I mean, it was supposed to be funny..."

The older-age genres, apparently, take themselves far too seriously. But the ability to say things with charming simplicity - seriously, with the quirk of a smile about the eyes, and those undoubtedly the frankly eager eyes of a child - takes great humility and great courage - and such are the things we only outgrow through tragic presumption of being 'too old.'

Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. Source.

By way of a general disclaimer, I think that the truly great authors, once read, cannot be entirely recovered from. (This is doubtless true of insipid literature as well, but I think it takes a more persistent battering of exposure, since insipid literature is mostly influential by passivity.) If you have never read A.A. Milne, or found yourself (heaven forbid!) incapable of enjoying him as an adult, you will probably not like my writing - or you will find parts of it stupid and tedious when it means to be funny in a moderately self-deprecating way. Similarly, if you have ever read Chesterton or Lewis, you will probably read my writing and say "Ho! Cheap imitation." Though I can identify a few areas in each where I would wish to be able to emulate that particular point of style, it is not a matter of trying to write like anybody. When it does happen, I can't seem to help it, and neither can you, if you read good books and pay attention while you do so.

"And if anyone knows anything about anything," said Bear to himself, "it's Owl who knows something about something," he said, "or my name's not Winnie-the-Pooh," he said, "Which it is," he added, "So there you are." 

1 Comment

1. Petr on August 4, 2011 at 11:39 PM

   Well you managed quite nicely to sneak in some spare writers into your answer with the mention of Chesterton and Lewis. There's talent :)
   
   It's a wonder I say anything to anybody, I'm having too much fun listening and reading!