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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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November 04, 2007

REVIEWING AUSLANDER

FlAlthough I thought Shalom Auslander's Nextbook column on Los Angeles was a compendium of every tedious, banal cliche ever hurled at this city, I'm really not - despite some perceptions - one to hold a grudge.  I thought his memoir, Foreskin's Lament, was just terrific, and I say so in my review in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

Auslander succeeds because, although superficially extreme in its concerns - God is a thug and Judaism can be ridiculous - Foreskin's Lament manages to occupy a station left open in the current Religion Debates. At one end we find the True Believers and at the other we find Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins denouncing religion as the root of all evil, the solace of dupes. For all his asperity, Auslander reports to us from the middle, as one who can't deny religion's contradictions and lunacies yet has been unable to entirely do away with belief and its necessity. In this, he is probably more representative of most Americans than either of the extremes, and it is in those moments that Foreskin's Lament is most heartfelt and effective.

As Auslander recently said in an interview at Bookslut.com, "It's easy to just slam the door on it, but there are people I know who find solace in it. And, certainly, the idea that there's a God should be right." Perhaps beneath all the name-calling fury and scabrous wit, Foreskin's Lament is intended as a parable on the strange durability of faith. That would be so Auslander.

Auslander will be in town for a reading at Vroman's on Monday evening at 7 p.m.  I hear he's a fun, lively reader, and might just trek out across four area codes to hear him.  If you're in the area, do stop by and pick up this remarkably funny book.

Posted by TEV at 08:58 AM in Reviews |

Comments

An assured, thoughtful review, a pleasure to read, and it made me want to pick up the book.

Plus it was funny.

Posted by: Justine Musk | November 04, 2007 at 11:58 PM

I liked it too. And his story collection was hilariously upsetting and remarkably less slight than it appeared.

Posted by: SKL | November 06, 2007 at 08:39 PM

I liked it too. And his story collection was hilariously upsetting and remarkably less slight than it appeared.

Posted by: SKL | November 06, 2007 at 08:40 PM

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THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

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