The Elegant Variation: THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD

« PICADOR AFRICA | Main | WE ALL SAW THIS ONE COMING, DIDN'T WE? »

May 06, 2004

THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD

The adulation accorded Steve Almond constitutes one of the blogosphere's enduring mysteries. From the very first days of this site, I've shaken my head in a sort of dazed wonder at the wake of overheated prose stylings the guys leaves behind. So I am, of course, delighted that the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley finally steps up and speaks the truth:

Like so many others who write books in these early years of the glorious new millennium, Almond is utterly, absolutely fascinated by himself, and he assumes that he is every bit as fascinating to everyone else. Self-absorption is the engine that drives most memoirs these days, and it's spilled over into scholarship and journalism as well. Many academics consider it not merely useful but mandatory to include their own experiences in the ostensibly scholarly inquiries they publish, and many journalists have persuaded themselves that the reporter is more important than the story.
So Almond is just going with the flow when he begins the book with "SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE AUTHOR," when he tells us that he was a "devout thumbsucker, years zero to ten," that "I have a distinctly candyfreakish name," that "the date of my birth, October 27, [is] a mere four days before the Freak National Holiday," Halloween. Likewise, Almond is indulging a well-worn memoir conceit when he describes himself as "an addict, a confirmed freak, a willing accomplice of the modern imperial system, sweet-tongued and complicit." None of this contributes a scintilla to what his publisher describes as "a quest to discover candy's origins in America, to explore the little companies that continue to get by on pluck and perseverance, and to witness the glorious excess of candy manufacturing," but it certainly tells us a whole lot more than we want (or need) to know about Steve Almond.

If Almond devoted a fraction of the efforts he brings to self-promotion to his writing, he might finally be on to something. But I doubt it.

Posted at 09:24 AM | Permalink

Comments

Yes, I couldn't agree more. I haven't read Candyfreak, but his fiction is "lite fare" a la Lorrie Moore on a bad day and I've found his essays on Moby and his own website to be puerile, hamhanded, ill-conceived whining straight from the Eggers-Julavits assembly line.

He's coming to my town next week to give a reading. Will I be there? Absolutely. In fact I wouldn't miss it. Two words: free samples.

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | May 06, 2004 at 09:34 AM

Yardley's like 100 so it doesn't matter what he thinks. His idea of candy is the bourbon soaked cherry at the bottom of a Manhattan (not thath there's anything wrong with that). Whether Almond's writing about candy, nipple clamps or himself, he's one of the most engaging writers out there, and he possesses something that Yardley sorely lacks: a sense of humor.

Your Anonymous Roving Correspondent

Posted by: ARC | May 06, 2004 at 10:49 AM

I personally find his short fiction very engaging, though not in the way I find short fiction by, say, Tim O'Brien (or, well, the old Tim O'Brien)which engages me on a more intellectual level. Instead, it's more like reading about something from my own past, a memory of being a dumb kid in the 80s or being a dumb single person in the 90s. Basically, he makes me laugh, which isn't such a bad thing. He may be obsessed with himself, but I challenge you (the royal you, I mean) to find a writer who isn't.

Posted by: Tod Goldberg | May 06, 2004 at 11:51 AM

"But distracting and ultimately annoying though all this narcissism is, there's also some interesting and occasionally amusing stuff."

To my eyes, this was less of a takedown of Almond than you seem to think. The author goes on to quote an entire long passage - out of grudging admiration, maybe? I don't know. Certainly not an unusual take on him - most every review of his fiction runs along the same lines: he's self-obsessed, sex-obsessed, immature. But most agree he is funny, and many (myself included) believe that he's a pretty skilled craftsman of engaging, generous, honest stories.

And since when is being funny bad? It's actually pretty hard to be funny in print. And though he may not be Franzen or Delillo, he's not exactly "lite" either. Not that there's anything wrong with "lite"....

I think part of the adulation that mystifies you - and hey, let's face it, this is adulation on a microscopic level, even by literary standards - is due to the fact that his stuff is accessible, and in some circles that appears to be a crime. Just my two cents....

Posted by: Alan | May 06, 2004 at 02:02 PM

Well, personally, I only recently referred to Steve Almond's work to prove a point about erotica. Which is not to suggest that I particularly care for the guy's work, but I do think, unlike Mr. Beck, that he has more going on than the Eggers/Julavits people. Then again, I don't know what the hell Beck's drinking right now (pass me some), because that's a bit like comparing "Fanny Hill" to "Everything is Illuminated."

Posted by: Ed | May 06, 2004 at 02:26 PM

My fandom of Almond is as follows:

MY LIFE IN HEAVY METAL--I've read the collection about five times, cover to cover, and I don't do that with most books. Maybe it's Lorrie Moore "lite" (haven't read her, alas, though I plan to rectify that soon) but his fiction speaks to me.

But his essays, his weeklong turn at Bookslut--well, they were and are a bit of a mess. So what's going on?

Editing.

Almond has a voice, and when it works, it hits me like a sucker punch--reading a story like "Valentino" was like having a lightbulb go on in my head. "Oh," I thought, "so that's how teen boys tried to relate to each other." Because I knew kids that tried to be so cool in having specific knowledge, even if they didn't know shit.

But it's a voice that's very rough around the edges, that no doubt is helped along by whoever at Grove/Atlantic is guiding him (Morgan Entrenkin?) so when he's left to his own devices, well, it can be somewhat disastrous.

I'll probably get around to CANDYFREAK at some point soon, but I'm more excited about the next collection of short stories. Because hopefully, Almond's fiction voice will be honed even more, guided even further to what it can--and should--be.

Posted by: Sarah | May 06, 2004 at 06:10 PM

I thought a couple of his stories were fine, but found Candyfreak unreadable.

Posted by: Maud | May 07, 2004 at 07:27 AM

For the record, Ed, I'm drinking Manischevitz Concord Grape cut with Formula 409. And incidentally, both Fanny Hill and Foer's book are disjointed narratives and both are loved by Erica Jong, for starters. Only Cleland's book ever gave me wood, though....

FWIW, I was too dismissive of Almond's fiction--I've not read the whole collection, just some stories in Tin House, SQ, MAR and "This Company Died For Your Lawn..." in the Missouri Review. But I still find the nonfiction annoying. But I still want some fucking candy.

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | May 07, 2004 at 01:21 PM

'Truth' according to who? I think by truth you mean 'honesty,' and really, honesty is just an opinion. Personally, I find Almond to be a fine writer. "My Life In Heavy Metal" and his new memoir "Candyfreak" are both well-written and entertaining. The short stories have a vivid bluntness lacking in most "literary" short fiction, and the candy book succeeds not only as a personal history, but as a study of candy history VIA personal history. What's wrong with the idea of tackling a bigger pop culture subject through personal memoir?

"Self-absorption is the engine that drives most memoirs these days..." Gee, I guess that's why they're called memoirs.

He may not be Franzen or Delillo? Thank God for that.

Posted by: Bob Sassone | May 07, 2004 at 01:28 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

MY NOVEL

HARRY, REVISED - Get all the details here.

TOUR DATES

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

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."

Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal by Rob Riemen

This slim volume by the president and founder of the Nexus Institute, a European-based humanist think-tank, stands as the most stirring redoubt against the ascendant forces of know-nothingness that we've come across in a long time. A full-throated, unapologetic defense of the virtues of Western Civ – in which "elite" is not and never should be a dirty word – this inspiring exploration of high art and high ideals is divided into three sections: The first looks at the life of Riemen's great hero Thomas Mann as a model for the examined life. The second imagines a series of conversations from turning points in European intellectual history, populated with the likes of Socrates, Nietzsche and others. The final section, "Be Brave," is nothing less than an exhortation to dig deep, especially in times of risk. The notion of nobility of the spirit might strike some modern ears as quaint but it seems more desperately necessary than ever before, and there are worse ways to read the accessible Nobility of Spirit than as a crash refresher in the Great Thinkers, free of academic jargon and cant. As a meditation on what is at stake when the pursuit of high ideals is elbowed aside by the pursuit of fleeting material gain, however, Nobility of Spirit might well be the most prescient book we've yet read on what's at stake in the current election cycle and in the developing global situation. Agree or disagree with Riemen's profound, ambitious and high-minded plea, you will be thinking about his words for a long time. It's been ages since a work of non-fiction moved us this way. Read it. Discuss it. Argue about it.
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

With rave reviews from James Wood, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner, it might not seem like we need to tell you to drop everything and go read Netherland, but we are telling you, and here's why: The way book coverage works these days, everyone talks about the same book for about two or three weeks, and then they move on and the book is more or less forgotten. Whereas a berth here in the Recommended sidebar keeps noteworthy titles in view for a good, long time, which is the sort of sustained attention this marvelous novel deserves. A Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness, it's an unforgettable New York story in which the post 9/11 lives of Hans, a Dutch banker estranged from his English wife, and Chuck Ramkissoon, a mysterious cricket entrepreneur, intertwine. The New York City of the immigrant margins is unforgettably invoked in gorgeous, precise prose, and the novel's luminous conclusion is a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging. Our strongest possible recommendation.
Dictation: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick

"History," wrote Henry James in a 1910 letter to his amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet, "is strangely written." This casual aside could easily serve as the epigraph of Cynthia Ozick's superb new collection Dictation, which concerns itself with lost worlds evoked by languages -- languages which separate and obscure as readily as they bind. It can be risky to look for connective tissue between stories written years apart and published in magazines ranging from The Conradian to The New Yorker. But themes of deception, posterity, and above all, the glory of language -- at once malleable and intractable -- knit together this quartet, recasting the whole as the harmonious product of Ozick's formidable talent. Read the entire review here
Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Now, on the one hand, you scarcely need us to alert you to the existence of a new J.M. Coetzee novel, or even to have us tell you it's worth reading. But we can tell you - we insist on telling you that Diary of a Bad Year is a triumph, easily Coetzee's most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace. Formally inventive, the book intertwines two narratives with the author's own Strong Opinions, a series of seemingly discrete philosophical and political essays. The cumulative effect of this strange trio is deeply moving and thought provoking. It's increasingly rare in this thoroughly post-post-modern age to raise the kind of questions in fiction Coetzee handles so masterfully - right down to what is it, exactly, that we expect (or need) from our novels. It's telling that, for all of his serious pronouncements on subjects ranging from censorship to pedophilia to the use of torture, it's finally a few pages from The Brothers Karamazov that brings him to tears. Moving, wise and - how's this for a surprise - funny and lightly self-mocking, Diary of a Bad Year might well be the book of the year and Coetzee is surely our essential novelist. We haven't stopped thinking about it since we set it down.
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

David Leavitt's magnificent new novel tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the British mathematician G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, mathematical autodidact and prodigy who had been working as a clerk in Madras, and who would turn out to be one of the great mathematical minds of the century. Ramanujan reluctantly joined Hardy in England - a move that would ultimately prove to his detriment - and the men set to work on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, one of mathematics' great unsolved problems. The Indian Clerk, an epic and elegant work which spans continents and decades, encompasses a World War, and boasts a cast of characters that includes Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lytton Strachey. Leavitt renders the complex mathematics in a manner that resonates emotionally as well as intellectually, and writes with crystalline elegance. The metaphor of the prime number – divisible only by one and itself – is beautifully apt for this tale of these two isolated geniuses. Leavitt's control of this dense, sprawling material is impressive – astonishing, at times – and yet despite its scope, he keeps us focused on his great themes of unknowability and identity. The Indian Clerk might be set in the past but it doesn't resemble most so-called "historical fiction." Rather, it's an ageless meditation on the quests for knowledge and for the self – and how frequently the two are intertwined – that is, finally, as timeless as the music of the primes. (View our full week of coverage here.)
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris' warm and funny debut novel is an antidote to the sneering likes of The Office and Max Barry's Company. Treating his characters with both affection and respect, Ferris takes us into a Chicago ad agency at the onset of the dot-bomb. Careers are in jeopardy, nerves are frayed and petty turf wars are fought. But there are bigger stakes in the balance, and Ferris' weirdly indeterminate point of view that's mostly first person plural, underscores the shared humanity of everyone who has ever had to sit behind a desk. It's a luminous, affecting debut and you can read the first chapter right here.
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

Coming to these shores at last, John Banville's thriller, written under the nom de plume Benjamin Black, has drawn rave reviews across the pond since it first appeared last October. Those who feared Banville might turn in an overly literary effort needn't worry. Influenced by Simenon's romans durs (hard stories), Banville unspools a dark mystery set in 1950s Dublin concerning itself with, among other things, the church's trade in orphans. At the heart of the book is the coroner Quirke, a Banvillean creation on par with Alex Cleave and Freddie Montgomery. Dublin is rendered with a damp, creaky specificity – you can almost taste the whisky.
The Paris Review Interviews, I by The Paris Review and Philip Gourevitch

Scanning our Recommended selections, one might conclude we're addicted to interviews, and one would be correct. If author interviews are like crack to us, then the Paris Review author interviews must surely be the gold standard of crack (a comparison Plimpton might not have embraced). The newly issued The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I (Picador) rolls out the heavy hitters. Who can possibly turn away from the likes of Saul Bellow, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy Parker, Robert Gottlieb and others? The interviews are formal and thoughtful but never dry and can replace any dozen "how-to" books on writing. What can be more comforting than hearing Bellow, answering a question on preparations and conception, admit "Well, I don't know exactly how it's done.” The best part of this collection? The "Volume I" in the title, with its promise of more volumes to come.
The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio

The best short story collection we've read since ... well, certainly since we've started this blog. And we might even say "ever" if Dubliners didn't cast such a long shadow. The short story is not our preferred form but D'Ambrosio's eight brilliant stories are almost enough to convert us. Defy the conventional wisdom that short story collections don't sell and treat yourself to this marvel. (We're especially partial, naturally, to "Screenwriter".)
The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier
*Now in Paperback*

What would you do if the woman who’d left you high and dry ten years ago called out of the blue to invite you to a party without any further explanation? If you’re French, you’d probably spend a lot of time pondering the Deeper Significance Of It All, which is exactly what Grégoire Bouillier does for the 120 hilarious pages of The Mystery Guest. This slim, witty memoir follows Bouillier through the party from hell, and is a case study in Gallic self-abasement. Before it’s all done, you’ll set fire to any turtleneck hanging in your closet and think twice before buying an expensive Bordeaux as a gift. But fear not – just when it seems that all is, indeed, random and pointless and there is no Deeper Significance, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of Virginia Woolf, and the tale ends on a note of unforced optimism. Parfait.
Ticknor by Sheila Heti

When George Ticknor's Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled. As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott's house ("But I am not a late man. I hate to be late."), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings a leavening poignancy to this brief tale. But don't let the size fool you — this 109-page first novel is small but scarcely slight; it is as dense and textured as a truffle.
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers by Vendela Vida

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you and yes, we are recommending a Believer product. Twenty-three interviews (a third presented for the first time) pairing the likes of Zadie Smith with Ian McEwan, Jonathan Lethem with Paul Auster, Edward P. Jones and ZZ Packer, and Adam Thirwell with Tom Stoppard make this collection a must-read. Lifted out of the context of some of the magazine's worst twee excesses, the interviews stand admirably on their own as largely thoughtful dialogues on craft. A handful of interviewers seem more interested in themselves than in their subjects but in the main this collection will prove irresistible to writers of any stripe - struggling or established - and to readers seeking a window into the creative process.
The Sea by John Banville

John Banville's latest novel returns him to the Booker Prize shortlist for the first time since 1989's The Book of Evidence. In The Sea, we find Banville in transition, moving from the icy, restrained narrators of The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud toward warmer climes. Max Morden has returned to the vacation spot of his youth as he grieves the death of his wife. Remembering his first, fatal love, Morden works to reconcile himself to his loss. Banville's trademark linguistic virtuosity is everpresent but some of the chilly control is relinquished and Max mourns and rages in ways that mark a new direction for Banville - and there's at least one great twist which you'll never see coming. Given the politicized nature of the British literary scene, Banville's shot at the prize might be hobbled by his controversial McEwan review but we're rooting for our longtime favorite to go all the way at last. UPDATE: Our man won!
Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

We've been fans of Booker Prize winner John Berger for ages, and we're delighted to have received an early copy of his latest work, Here is Where We Meet. In this lovely, elliptical, melancholy "fictional memoir," Berger traverses European cities from Libson to Geneva to Islington, conversing with shades from his past – He encounters his dead mother on a Lisbon tram, a beloved mentor in a Krakow market. Along the way, we're treated to marvelous and occasionally heart-rending glimpses of an extraordinary life, a lyrical elegy to the 20th century from a man who - in his eighth decade - remains committed to his political beliefs and almost childlike in his openness to people, places and experiences. There's no conventional narrative here, and those seeking plot are advised to look elsewhere. But Here is Where We Meet offers a wise, moving and poetic look at the life of an artist traversing the European century from a novelist whose talent remains undimmed in his twilight years.
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.
The Rider by Tim Krabbe

Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

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

May 06, 2004

THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD

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

May 06, 2004

THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD

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