"There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was"
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Vance’s offhand nod to Christopher Morley is a small masterclass in how writers mythologize influence while refusing to fake a neat origin story. He grants Morley a place in the personal canon - “some influence on me” - then immediately withdraws the explanatory key: “but I couldn’t tell you what it was.” In a culture that loves the clean lineage (this book begat that voice, this mentor unlocked that style), Vance offers something more honest and, quietly, more radical: the admission that influence is often atmospheric.
The specific intent reads like modesty, but it’s also craft realism. Writers absorb cadence, permission, temperament. Morley, a genial literary essayist of the 1920s, trafficked in cultivated enthusiasm for books and a kind of urbane playfulness. Vance’s own work, famously baroque and sly, doesn’t resemble Morley on the surface, which is exactly the point. Influence isn’t always mimicry; sometimes it’s the first time you feel a certain kind of sentence is allowed to exist.
The subtext is a gentle rebuke to the interview question behind it: name your influences, annotate your imagination. Vance refuses to retroactively rationalize his development into a tidy narrative of cause and effect. That resistance also protects the mystery at the heart of reading - how a half-remembered writer from decades ago can tilt your sensibility without leaving fingerprints. In the end, Vance is describing the most common, least discussable literary experience: being shaped by something you can’t quote, only feel.
The specific intent reads like modesty, but it’s also craft realism. Writers absorb cadence, permission, temperament. Morley, a genial literary essayist of the 1920s, trafficked in cultivated enthusiasm for books and a kind of urbane playfulness. Vance’s own work, famously baroque and sly, doesn’t resemble Morley on the surface, which is exactly the point. Influence isn’t always mimicry; sometimes it’s the first time you feel a certain kind of sentence is allowed to exist.
The subtext is a gentle rebuke to the interview question behind it: name your influences, annotate your imagination. Vance refuses to retroactively rationalize his development into a tidy narrative of cause and effect. That resistance also protects the mystery at the heart of reading - how a half-remembered writer from decades ago can tilt your sensibility without leaving fingerprints. In the end, Vance is describing the most common, least discussable literary experience: being shaped by something you can’t quote, only feel.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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