The Elegant Variation: THE TEMPLE OF LETHEM

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September 30, 2004

THE TEMPLE OF LETHEM

Jonathan Lethem will be casting his pearls of wisdom before the eager writing students of Temple University. (Admit it - you thought we were going to say "swine" didn't you ... )

They’ll have an opportunity to not only meet, but learn from, their idol when Lethem comes to campus from Oct. 4–8 to ingest, evaluate and inform student works as the program’s visiting writer for the fall semester.
“Graduate students in the creative writing program will be able to talk with Lethem one-on-one throughout the week—they’ll get to know the human that lives beyond the book jacket,” says Jena Osman, director of the graduate creative writing program. “The conversations that arise from these visits are crucial to the students’ understanding of what it means to be a practicing writer today.”

The "ingesting" part sounds a little rough. Jesus, who writes these things?

Posted at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Comments

Sounds like the journo trapped inside a librarian's body to me. The sign off's a bit rough too -"It’s during moments like these that Lethem ceases to be Superman and becomes an everyday Clark Kent". Blow me down.

Genevieve

Posted by: genevieve | September 30, 2004 at 04:38 AM

Is that a librarian insult?!

I'm going to try to make Lethem's lecture, see what he has to say.

Posted by: derik | September 30, 2004 at 06:16 AM

Oh, for what it's worth, that is the student run paper, so... a student of some sort wrote it.

Posted by: derik | September 30, 2004 at 06:18 AM

"Hi Mr. Lethem. I'm a huuuuge fan. I loved Motherless Hoboken and Waitress of Solitude was just amazing. Anyway, I'm wondering if you might have time to ingest one of my stories? Or maybe one of my appendages."

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | September 30, 2004 at 06:42 AM

Well, who knows? Maybe someone will buy Lethem lunch so that a doctoral candidate can get at the innards trapped inside the slices of bread.

Posted by: Ed | September 30, 2004 at 07:57 AM

Ingestion = sucky sucky?

Posted by: ARC | September 30, 2004 at 09:52 AM

Yes, Derik, I am being a bitch but I am doing library studies so call it an in-joke if you like. The reverential tone was a little overpowering for my liking, is all. Enjoy the lecture.

Genevieve

Posted by: genevieve | September 30, 2004 at 06:10 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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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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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

September 30, 2004

THE TEMPLE OF LETHEM

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

September 30, 2004

THE TEMPLE OF LETHEM

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