Seems right on St. Patrick's Day to honor another of my patron saints, another early one: Oscar Wilde. With him, it was so many things -- his writing, his wit, his style, his fashion, his aesthetics and profound sense of art (and the artist's role in society) -- I was always highly impressed by and influenced by him. I always felt like Victorian society was challenged by his sybaritic ways, and bit back at him savagely, seeking to destroy the man (and, sadly, largely succeeding, at least in the physical sense of radically shortening his life, although is sparkle continues to outlast his actual life). His understanding of beauty and art's centrality to life made a huge impression on me. "Dorian Gray" always stuck with me (so much that I even named a character that in a short story as a kid, "Dorian's Flowers").
He's a feast of wit, and one of his quotes I ran across in early college...
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular....has always hung with me. I've pondered the meaning of it a great deal for over 20 years, and have tried to get at the vulgarity of war in a number of stories.
I will always be a Wilde Child. Anybody who knows me knows that my wit and charm are some key qualities I possess (a sharp tongue, yes, but silver, too). And I know that Wilde influenced me early on in that respect.
