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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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« MINGHELLA DIES | Main | TEV GIVEAWAY: LIFE CLASS »

March 20, 2008

THURSDAY MARGINALIA

* Amit Chaudhuri is the first Indian Man Booker judge.

* Jacket Copy's Carolyn Kellogg on Titlepage.  (We can report the revamped format is livelier, and there's no teleprompter in the room.)

* Two sadly notable literary passings in recent days - Hugo Claus and Arthur C. Clarke.

* TLS looks at Orhan Pamuk's essay collection.

In Other Colours, Pamuk has revealed more about himself than he intended. His situating himself so close to the likes of Dostoevsky and Nabokov strikes a discordant note, at once aspirational and unadventurous. Orhan Pamuk does not, as Christopher Hitchens has acerbically observed, wear his learning lightly, and this may be because the process of acquiring it was a trying one, pitting him against the tepid philistinism of 1970s Istanbul and his mother’s displeasure. Other Colours shows him to be a solitary, determined autodidact, prone to self-indulgence and morbidity; it contains only hints of his greatness as a novelist.

* The shortlist of the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize for Fiction and Non-Fiction has been announced.

* Carol Muske-Dukes's editorial on campus guns.

* A Charles Bock interview - the porn angle, courtesy of the Reverse Cowgirl.

* For the post-Spitzer era, ten books about hookers.  (Is there a theme emerging here?)

* Adam Kirsch is pretty appalled by the new Nicholson Baker.

The problem with Mr. Baker's book is that he is not interested in ambiguity, but in countering the received myth of the good war with his own myth of the bad war. Mr. Baker's ignorance, however, is much more disgraceful than the ignorance he seeks to combat — first, because he presents it as knowledge, and second, because World War II was, in fact, if not simply a good war, then an absolutely necessary one. In arguing the contrary, Mr. Baker is trying to convince his reader that false is true, and at times even that good is evil.

* And, finally, it's true - the Litblog Co-op is closing up shop.  We'd hoped to have something on this by now but, well, we've been a bit preoccupied.  But Dan Green's thougts are, as always, worth reading.

Posted by TEV at 12:01 AM in Marginalia |

Comments

Hi all,

Mark, I'm sorry I didn't respond to your email, but that's only because I didn't receive it.

If I could respond to a couple things here, though. First of all, I didn't intend my comments to be personal at all. I was taking the opportunity of Mark's review to comment on the tricky nature of book reviewing. Literature is the only artistic endeavor where artists are routinely paid to praise and trash each other's work. I don't have a problem with that, it creates drama and generates additional income for writers. But a lot of authors, and especially novelists, even ones who write reviews, have some ambivalence about it. And I think it's especially tricky for novelists who try to be provocative as critics. I'm not saying it's bad, or that they shouldn't try, I'm just saying there are pitfalls.

Also I was not insinuating that Mark did anything improper by soliciting blurbs from other writers. In fact I stated plainly that he did not. I was, however, using them as an example. When you ask someone to read your unpublished manuscript and lend his reputation with a quote of praise, you are asking him for a favor. Every novelist does it--blurbs are important grease for the publishing machine. Mark's book isn't even out yet and I'm sure he's already been asked to read any number of unpublished books with the hope that he will give the writer a quote. But a writer asking another writer for a favor is very different than a critic asking a writer for a favor. I mean, nobody has ever called me up and said, "I'm reviewing your book next month, could you come over and help me move?" So the life of the critic novelist is complicated. It's not impossible. It's not unethical. I was merely pointing out that Mark, a person many of us have followed for some time as a critic, is at an interesting, even exciting, point in his careers.

Finally I want to dismiss the hilarious idea that we invited Mark to be a judge only so we could ambush him with our commentary. Mark has been a judge since year one because we think he's interesting and opinionated reviewer. I can assure everyone that this exchange was not part of some diabolical four-year plan.

Posted by: Kevin Guilfoile | March 21, 2008 at 08:27 AM

Sorry, Kevin - I had an old (Coudal) address. Resending my email to this one. Thanks.

Posted by: TEV | March 21, 2008 at 08:31 AM

I've also heard back from John, who has written an extremely gracious and thoughtful email, and I consider this case of misunderstandings closed, with no hard feelings.

Posted by: TEV | March 21, 2008 at 10:45 AM

Since it seems everyone's getting along now (or, everyone relevant, anyway), I just want to say that my brief exposure to Vendela Vida's work has always left me shrugging my shoulders, and that after burning through the first 75 pages or so of The Savage Detectives, what followed was sometimes great but also occasionally bored me to tears. Overall, I'd say that Mark's review was significantly less "controversial" than the official responses to his review, but I'm not sure that word is really warranted. Impolite, yes; controversial, no.

Mark, thanks for coming out east to tape Titlepage the other day. Was a pleasure to meet you.

Posted by: JMW | March 21, 2008 at 04:47 PM

Hugo Claus was one of the greatest writers of our time .He deserved the Nobel prize !

Posted by: nautilus | March 24, 2008 at 04:26 AM

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THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
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