I write like WHO?
I think I’ve tried this before, but the previous time I tried it with text from my journal. This time I thought I would try it with some text from a novel.
That was with fairly straightforward text.
With more action oriented text, it said I wrote like Harry Harrison (who’s he?) or James Joyce.
Well, let’s try with another sample, also action oriented. Again it says that I wrote like James Joyce. Well, I suppose it’s at least consistent.
Third time lucky. A bit more pedestrian this time, the opening paragraphs, setting the scene. So what does it say?
OK, scratch George Orwell and Harry Harrison, james Joyce it is. Stay us wherefore in our search for tighteousness, O Sustainer!
That, in case anyone didn’t recognize it, is a quote from Finnegan’s wake
Still, I’m not sure it’s a compliment. I ploughed my way through Ulysses a couple of years ago, and one of my English profs told an honours student not to read it, as it would blunt his critical faculties. But the English department thought that English literature began and ended with D.H. Lawrence, with just one exception, one of their own number, Cake Manson, who was indubitably the greatest playwright since Shakespeare. Even Harry Harrison was easier to find with a Google search than Cake Manson.
Perhaps I should send my unpublished novel to Joyce’s publishers, and see if they are impressed.
Notes from underground 