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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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« L.A. EVENT: NAM LE **HIGHLY RECOMMENDED** | Main | REVIEW: PERSONAL DAYS »

June 26, 2008

TEV GIVEAWAY: MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU

MtihyWe recently mentioned that Darin Strauss was blogging his 22-city book tour, so this seems an ideal moment to offer up a copy of his latest novel More Than It Hurts You.  No less a luminary than the sublime Gary Shteyngart has described it as "a novel that is — suture by suture, idea for idea — peerlessly brilliant. Here is a supreme, mature novelist at the height of his powers. Take me to the hospital. My jaw has dropped."  If you're curious, you can read an excerpt for yourself, or have Gary Oldman read it to you.  (Scroll down.)

The rules are the same as ever, as always: Drop us an email, subject line "HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS ME?"  Please include your full mailing address.  If you've won in the last six months, you need to sit this one out.  And we will take all comers until 8 p.m. PST, at which time the Random Number Generator will bestow its favors upon one of you.  Until then, be well, and do check the post below and come to Nam Le's L.A. reading on Sunday night.

UPDATE: Congratulations to yet another longtime giveaway entrant, Eric Bottorff of Urbana, IL!  Now go bench yourself for six months ...

Posted by TEV at 09:45 PM in Giveaways |

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