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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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« DORIS LESSING WINS NOBEL PRIZE | Main | TEV GIVEAWAY: AGAINST THE DAY »

October 11, 2007

OCTOBER BOOK CLUB

Our posts are beginning to show up in the Words Without Borders forum for October's book club on Sándor Márai’s The Rebels.  The format is a bit odd - our posts appear down the initial thread as comments, but do go and read down to the second response, in which we get the discussion rolling, talking about literary fathers and sons.

Because we know launching book discussions can be tricky when most people haven't actually read the book, we've tried to open it up to bring in all sorts of discussions:

Finally, there’s a reality to online book clubs - most of you haven’t read this book. Surely, some will as the month unfolds but many will not and I hope to keep you all involved in the discussion by incorporating questions that allow you to bring your own reading experiences to the table. I’ll try to end as many posts as possible with such a question, and today I am left wanting to further contemplate literary fathers. If you’d like to talk about the role of the father in the coming of age tale; of literary fathers who have left an impression; or about the apparent timelessness of the conflict between fathers and sons, I hope you’ll make use of the comments box below.

Please do pop on over and leave your thoughts.

Posted by TEV at 08:13 AM in World Beat |

Comments

I LOVED the "Above Paris". The pictures are incredible. I have a huge fascination with Paris. I'm half French and have not been to France yet. It's a great gift for any Paris lover!

I would like to also recommend a book that I just finished that I don't see on your list.

I just read a book by an author who is very similar to Nicholas Sparks - His name is Rob Costelloe. I think you'd like his work. This is Rob's first book. Incredible how he has a hit right off the bat.

Thank you for the great book listings!

Mary :>)

Posted by: Mary | November 13, 2007 at 07:02 PM

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