h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you could pick any author, living or dead, to write your biography/life's story/any story involving your person, who would it be?

I was discussing this question with some friends a while ago in a coffee house much like this one...I still haven't decided on an answer, but I've narrowed my choices down to John Irving, John Steinbeck, and Richard Adams. Thoughts on this?

/F

it would have to depend on my mood. sometimes i think shel silverstein... or maybe tim burton. or maybe terry pratchett, that way it might seem more interesting than it has been on bad days... morrissey.... at the end of the bad day cycle... robert smith. is this allowed? oh wait, i don't care... maybe stoppard, maybe borges, maybe goethe... maybe a nice warped little comic book by jhonen vasquez?
maybe i should just write it myself.
waking the dead to write for me would be... smelly at best.
the musicians would be more cranky than the dead.
the quirkies wouldn't pay attention, they have better characters itching to be written down in their head... if reality were at the forefront, they'd never have any fun.
i'd never have any fun unless i wrote it myself. hey, i've lived it, i deserve to write the story of the whole sordid ordeal... someone else might choose to edit out the story of the chipmunk i tortured when i was 12.

i should really avoid responding to postings when i'm annoyed after eating bad pizza. don't they have some kind of sensor for something like that here? ugh.

I would choose Tom Robbins. No question at all. He can write women better than many women write women. Oh...to have Tom Robbins write me..that would be heaven.

what if he verbally ripped you to shreds and battered your self-esteem with his descriptions of you? if someone else writes you it could be impossible for you to maintain your self-image! what if it turns out that you're not who you think you are? everyone works hard to exude a certain self-ness, and that could be flushed down the toilet in an instant! maybe i'm just paranoid. i need sleep.

I know myself well enough to know no writer can write my self-esteem away.

Perhaps you do need sleep, silver cloud of lunacy. Or perhaps you just need to throw away all your mirrors.

While I don't think I have a self-esteem problem, I would like not to be the central character of my biography, but just be the point-of-view for the experiences I have had and the people I've met, both meat and cyber. Ain't I made up of my pov of experience?

i agree with that... all you really have is the way you see things, you can't follow yourself around objectively, and neither can anyone else, it just doesn't exist. i'd like to describe the meat i've met too, but it usually doesn't talk much when it's in the oven. i wonder what kind of bio meat would write of itself. "it's very warm..."

In any case it would be well done.

Asteroid Lil...your POV idea somehow reminds me of how Paul Theroux portrays characters (which are often based on him) in his novels. I haven't read one of his books in a long while, so I am not sure if my memory is accurate. But still...I'd like my bio to not just about my POV and I do want to be the central character.

Ah, but the sneaky trick with this technique is that the reader assembles their idea of you by your attitude to the people around you and the events that are recounted from your point of view. To a certain extent, Austen pulls this off with Emma.

I'd like Mark Radcliffe to write my story. His autobiographical book Showbusiness, My life as a rock and roll nobody has been one of the best reads I've had for years. If you've never heard of him, he's a national radio station DJ and the book is about him and his various bands who never quite made it. It's not written with any kind of bitterness or malice and is quite funny, because he realises that his love of music has enabled him to do all sorts of things (eg be flown to NY to interview Bowie).
I'd say this book is a must read for any frustrated musicians out there
He's also from around my home town (Manchester) and moved away to live in London to work and didn't like it either!

Sounds like a book to look for.
So do you want him to write your life because you've tried to fly bands too?
Lil

No, I was never talented enough in that sphere (though it don't stop others ). I used to listen to his radio show and I think I've a similar sense of humour.

The book's jacket does compare him to Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About a Boy) and he does compare well.

I'd want DNA himself, or Micheal Palin or Terry Pratchett - They're the only people who could capture how impossibly mad and funny it has been so far. ("Did I tell you about the time I had to plough a field with a water buffalo for the Chinese State press" etc. etc.)