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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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« TUESDAY MARGINALIA (Part I) | Main | TEV GIVEAWAY: BOOKFORUM »

January 07, 2009

WEDNESDAY MARGINALIA (Part II)

* Rob Riemen, author of our recent favorite Nobility of Spirit (see Recommended sidebar), writes an open letter to the President-elect.

* We failed to get our shit together in time to contribute to the always stimulating Books of the Year symposium at Ready Steady Book, but that shouldn't stop you from heading over and enjoying the goods.

* Interested in the top ten most sought after out of print books?  We were, too.

* Might this be the worst ever self-published novel (which is, you know, saying a lot)?  (Thanks to Gus Domino.)

Representative Quotes: "Mr. T., great and gallant man, was about as afraid of flying as a patriot of truth." (page 111); "John Eddy Ryan III; a grade A, first class, prime rib, numero uno creep... His name was all that he had. His name his claim to fame. Would a pile of poop called another name smell sweeter? Were it perfumed with perfume of prose or poetry, 'twould sweeter smell? Would you want to eat it?" (page 127); "She just wanted to be happy and help others be happy, be their friend, to be a friend of man, to serve man. To serve man using the claw hammer of laughter removing the nails of woe from the coffin of care... April just wanted to be the clown in the party of life. Life! Party! Sure!" (page 145)

* Salman Rushdie is the subject of the Times' Saturday interview.

* Paris has agreed to provide a rent-free apartment to exiled writer Taslima Nasrin.

* The Los Angeles Times considers the reissue of Humboldt's Gift.

Bellow famously based the Humboldt/Citrine story line on his own relationship with the poet Delmore Schwartz, who died forgotten in the gutter at just about the time that Bellow was achieving worldwide fame. Bellow closely cannibalized his own life, and those who passed through it, a tendency that he repeated throughout his career and one that makes him seem especially modern. Some -- notably his biographer James Atlas -- have taken him to task for this. The critics Brent Staples and A.O. Scott once conducted an online debate in Slate, the theme of which was: Is Saul Bellow a monster? In the years since Bellow's death in 2005, the appropriateness, or relevance, of this question has receded. Does it really matter whether Bellow was a mean guy or not? What remains is the luminousness of the writing.

* Poets & Writers has received a $2 million grant to help underwrite the Jackson Poetry Prize.

* Nigerian novelist Elechi Amadi was kidnapped and released 23 hours later.

* And, finally, we thought we'd belatedly share this trailer our Dutch publishers worked up for Harry, Revised.  We don't speak a word of Dutch but we think you'll get the gist ...

Posted by TEV at 12:10 AM in Marginalia |

Comments

Paul Lamb

Does it really matter if Bellow strip mined his life to write Humboldt's Gift? Does the story stand on its own? If I read it without knowing the author's history, would it be worthwhile, interesting, rollicking? I happen to think that the work stands or falls altogether on its own merits, and I think this one does.

Posted by: Paul Lamb | January 07, 2009 at 05:10 AM

Paul Lamb

...stand, that is.

Posted by: Paul Lamb | January 07, 2009 at 07:23 AM

Jess Haberman

the Fuzzy Mules quotes are fantastic lol.

Jess
http://bookpublishing.today.com

Posted by: Jess Haberman | January 09, 2009 at 01:14 PM

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