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, Jr. (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 in a motorcycle accident in 1982.

Gardner's father was a lay-preacher and dairy farmer and his mother was an English teacher at a local school. Both parents were fond of Shakespeare, and often recited literature together. As a child, Gardner attended public school and worked on his father's farm, where he accidentally killed his brother in an accident with a cultipacker.

Gardner first attended school at DePaul University. However, he received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1955. He received his M.A. from the University of Iowa.

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 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and his two books on authorship -- The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist -- are considered classics.

John Gardner could be both inspiring and intimidating to his writing students. At Chico State, when a young Raymond Carver mentioned to Gardner that he had read, but not liked, the assigned short story, "Blackberry Winter" by Robert Penn Warren, Gardner said without smiling "You'd better read it again." But seeing that Carver needed a place to write undisturbed, Gardner did Carver the generous favor of giving him a key to Gardner's own office.

However, the conclusive and didactic style received mixed reviews for his book of criticism called On Moral Fiction. His direct and often unflattering (perhaps courageous) judgments of contemporary authors harmed his relationships with many in the publishing industry.

An example of Gardner's combative personality is his meeting with the New York book editor David Segal. Gardner arrived in Segal's office wearing a black motorcycle jacket and carrying three substantial novel manuscripts. He placed the three manuscripts on Segal's desk and announced: "Mr. Segal, I'd like you to read these novels.... Now." Gardner told this story himself in his book "On Becoming a Novelist."

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. He died in a motorcycle accident just days before a scheduled third wedding. A book by Susan Thornton detailing her relationship with Gardner, , was published in 2000.

"On Writers and Writing" contains John Gardner's essays and reviews, which was published posthumously in 1994. The book's introduction by Charles Johnson, his former student and friend, is also of interest to the general readership. This book was edited by Stewart O'Nan and published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

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
The King's Indian: Stories and Tales

Biography

The Life and Times of Chaucer

Children's Stories

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 links

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