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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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August 18, 2006

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE RETURN OF THE PLAYER

OK, it's time for another TEV book giveaway as we get the weekend underway.  Today's offering is Michael Tolkin's The Return of the Player which seems as appropriate an L.A. book to give away as we can think of. 

Player "More than a decade has passed since Griffin Mill's murderous ascent to Hollywood power in The Player. Now, with his career stalled and only $6 million in the bank, he is, by Hollywood standards, broke. The 12-year-old daughter he sired with his then mistress (now discontented wife), Lisa, is a brat who reverts to noxious baby talk when she doesn't get her way. His two older children hold him in cold contempt. He suffers from erectile dysfunction (his allergy to Viagra a wicked double whammy) and lusts after his ex-wife, June. In Griffin's mind, all of Western civilization is in decline, and his fantasies feature a Pacific atoll stocked with food and weapons. Step one in his plan to gain control hinges on leveraging the politics of elite Los Angeles private schools. (He commits manslaughter in the process.) Griffin's ploy snags the attention of a voracious entertainment magnate who plucks Mill from his stagnation and taunts him into concocting a multibillion-dollar idea. Mill's antiheroic effort to wring love and meaning from a loveless and meaningless life is heartfelt and cynical, resulting in a powerful dark comedy that transcends the shopworn genre of Hollywood satire. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The first reader to drop us an email with the subject line "I'm a Player" wins the book.  Please include your mailing address.  Previous winners not eligible.  And please remember - we're late risers so we'll post the winner when we tumble out of bed.

UPDATE:  Congratulations to our winner, Shane Ford of Des Moines, Iowa!  Thanks to all our Player Participants, and watch this space for some more great giveaways coming up.  Have a lovely weekend, people.

Posted by TEV at 12:28 AM in Giveaways |

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