The Elegant Variation: PORTIS APPRECIATION

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March 10, 2004

PORTIS APPRECIATION

I generally hate the construction "a writer's writer" (just what the fuck does that mean, exactly, can anyone explain?) but in the case of Charles Portis, I can almost let it go. The Boston Globe genuflects.

For starters, Portis is funny. Roy Blount Jr., who used to give away copies of Portis's novels to younger writers, has compared him to Mark Twain. He's right, certainly in terms of the two authors' wonderfully understated prose. When I read -- I suppose I should claim "reread" -- "Huckleberry Finn" to one of my sons a few years ago, I marveled at how the un-showy words rolled off the page. A readers' writer, to be sure. Portis also has the trademark empathy for lost souls that resonates with writers. If we were found souls, we wouldn't be writing. It is ironic that Portis himself has become a cult figure, because he understands our need to form insular microreligions to keep sane. His accessible 1985 novel, "Masters of Atlantis," paints this picture in broad strokes.

Pay special attention to Norwood.

Posted at 12:08 AM | Permalink

Comments

I can help.

'Writer's writer' is a designation that suggests that the designee is a writer who other writers admire and freqently cite as being instructive, influential or insprirational. It is not employed in the way 'a man's man' is —but is probably best defined ostensively.

Universally, Alice Munro; To a certain generation of writers, Richard Yates. Maybe William Gass.

The phrase can frequently be interchangably used in place of 'underappreciated' (talk about a troublesome notion): Fred Busch,Percival Everett, Jim Shepard, Joyce Carol Oates, Oscar Hijuelos, Ron Carlson—you get the idea.

Does this help?

Posted by: Birnbaum | March 10, 2004 at 11:37 AM

You are, as always, helpful and lucid.

I confess I was being a tad sarcastic - my understanding of the term meshes with yours. But what has always troubled is some underlying sense of ... apartness, if you will. As though that which a writer might find especially worthy is different than that which a reader might, and vice versa.

It's an expression that always pushes me back to the old saw, "good writing is good writing."

A bit reductive, but comforting.

Posted by: TEV | March 10, 2004 at 04:48 PM

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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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*Now in Paperback*

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 10, 2004

PORTIS APPRECIATION

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 10, 2004

PORTIS APPRECIATION

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism