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  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."
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March 15, 2006

MCGAHERN PROFILED

If, like us, you were disappointed that the wondrous John McGahern cancelled his recent stateside visit, go console yourself with this Boston Globe profile.

From James Joyce to Samuel Beckett, many Irish writers went into exile. But not McGahern. ''My generation reacted against that," he said. ''It was said that to become an Irish writer, you had to go abroad, but to me that was the height of nonsense. You can't imagine Proust having to leave France to be a French writer. I said, 'I can write as badly in Ireland as anywhere else.' "

Don't you believe it.  The man is a living master, and merits your close attention.

Posted by TEV at 12:18 AM in World Beat |

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