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What Novel/Story/Poem Do You Wish You Had Written?

leiphos

leiphos

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May 8, 2008
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The title says it all. This thread can refer any genre of writing. Do tell.

And if it's a short story or poem, maybe you can give a link to it or something.
 
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I would like to have written Desiderata by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s.

Safe for work, simply did not want to clog the page up.

NSFW:
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
 
There are lots of poems, stories etc etc that I admire, but to wish I had written them is just... lazy? self-defeating? depressing? wrong.

But if I had to, i'd wish I was Iain Banks...

I also always liked The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. When we studied it at school it was about this stage in my life that I started smoking dope and taking acid... and Split Enz released a song around this time called Six Months in a Leaky Boat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yav3C4nKAY) which I felt was connected... (especially the haunting musical outro).
 
Perfume by Patrick Suskind.
Ahhhhhhh.................... <3<3<3

It's even more lovely in its original German, so I've heard. (Wish I could understand German!)

o_perfume.jpg
 
NSFW:
BRING me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape,
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
Under the Andes to the Cape,
Suffer'd no savour of the earth to 'scape. 5

Let its grapes the morn salute
From a nocturnal root,
Which feels the acrid juice
Of Styx and Erebus;
And turns the woe of Night, 10
By its own craft, to a more rich delight.

We buy ashes for bread;
We buy diluted wine;
Give me of the true,
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl'd 15
Among the silver hills of heaven
Draw everlasting dew;
Wine of wine,
Blood of the world,
Form of forms, and mould of statures, 20
That I intoxicated,
And by the draught assimilated,
May float at pleasure through all natures;
The bird-language rightly spell,
And that which roses say so well: 25

Wine that is shed
Like the torrents of the sun
Up the horizon walls,
Or like the Atlantic streams, which run
When the South Sea calls. 30

Water and bread,
Food which needs no transmuting,
Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting,
Wine which is already man,
Food which teach and reason can. 35

Wine which Music is,—
Music and wine are one,—
That I, drinking this,
Shall hear far Chaos talk with me;
Kings unborn shall walk with me; 40
And the poor grass shall plot and plan
What it will do when it is man.
Quicken'd so, will I unlock
Every crypt of every rock.

I thank the joyful juice 45
For all I know;
Winds of remembering
Of the ancient being blow,
And seeming-solid walls of use
Open and flow. 50

Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine;
Retrieve the loss of me and mine!
Vine for vine be antidote,
And the grape requite the lote!
Haste to cure the old despair; 55
Reason in Nature's lotus drench'd—
The memory of ages quench'd—
Give them again to shine;
Let wine repair what this undid;
And where the infection slid, 60
A dazzling memory revive;
Refresh the faded tints,
Recut the agèd prints,
And write my old adventures with the pen
Which on the first day drew, 65
Upon the tablets blue,
The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.


is also safe for work, but it's pretty lengthy.
i wish i'd written this, and well, anything by Emerson, really.

this one's called Bacchus
 
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and this one.

NSFW:
IN Nature's temple living pillars rise,
And words are murmured none have understood,
And man must wander through a tangled wood
Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes.

As long-drawn echoes heard far-off and dim
Mingle to one deep sound and fade away;
Vast as the night and brilliant as the day,
Colour and sound and perfume speak to him.

Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child,
Sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green;
Others, corrupted, rich, exultant, wild,

Have all the expansion of things infinite:
As amber, incense, musk, and benzoin,
Which sing the sense's and the soul's delight.


by Baudelaire entitled Correspondences
 
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - given enough time and motivation and dedication I actually believe I would've been able to come up with something like that or similar. A bit annoyed Murakami beat me to it.
 
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