John Gardner
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- This article concerns the American literary novelist John C. Gardner. For other men with this name, see John Gardner (disambiguation).
John Champlin Gardner (July 21, 1933 – September 14, 1982) was an American novelist and teacher. He was born in 1933 in Batavia, New York. He was a popular and controversial figure until his death, while riding a motorcycle, in 1982.
Gardner's most popular novels were The Sunlight Dialogues, about a brooding, disenchanted policeman who is called upon to engage a madman fluent in classical mythology, and Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf legend from the monster's point of view. Both books feature brutish figures struggling for integrity and understanding. Gardner was famously obsessive with his work and has a reputation for advanced craft, smooth rhythms and careful attention to the continuity of the fictive dream.
Throughout his adult life Gardner continued to teach writing. He was a favorite at the Breadloaf writers conference and his two books on authorship -- The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist -- are considered classics. However, the conclusive and didactic style was not well received in his book of criticism called On Moral Fiction. His direct and often unflattering judgments of contemporary authors harmed his relationships with many in the publishing industry.
In 1977, Gardner published "The Life and Times of Chaucer." However, in a review in the October 1977 edition of the scholastic journal Speculum, Sumner J. Ferris pointed to several passages in the text that either in whole or in part were lifted directly from works by other authors, without proper citation. Ferris lightly suggested that Gardner published before he was ready, but Newsweek magazine and other mainstream media outlets were quick to simply label it plagiarism.
John Gardner was married twice, first to Joan Louise Patterson, and then to the poet Elizabeth Rosenberg. When he died he was engaged to Susan Thornton. A book by Thornton detailing her relationship with Gardner, On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner, was published in 2004.
"On Writers and Writing" contains John Gardner's essays and reviews, which was published posthumously in 1994. Despite his writings, the Introduction to this book by Charles Johnson, his former student and friend is really interesting for the common readers. This book was edited by Stewart O'Nan and published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
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Some books by John Gardner
Fiction
- The Resurrection
- The Wreckage of Agathon
- Grendel
- The Sunlight Dialogues
- Jason and Medeia
- Nickel Mountain
- The King's Indian
- October Light
- Freddy's Book
- The Art of Living and Other Stories
- Mickelsson's Ghosts
Biography
- The Life and Times of Chaucer
Children's Stories
- In the Suicide Mountains
Didactic
- The Poetry of Chaucer
- On Moral Fiction
- On Becoming a Novelist
- The Art of Fiction
Translation
- Gilgamesh (with John Maier)
Essays & Reviews
- On Writers and Writing
External link
- Audio Interview [1] (http://wiredforbooks.org/johngardner)