The Elegant Variation: HOLLINGHURST SPEAKS

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May 11, 2005

HOLLINGHURST SPEAKS

CNN runs the transcript of Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst's recent Q&A with TalkAsia.

LH: Do you feel that you are being pigeonholed into being a gay writer? I mean is this a fair thing, are people sort of missing something here?

AH: Well the day after the Booker, that was of course the thing that tabloid headlines picked on -- "Gay novel wins Booker". One of them even said, "Gay sex wins Booker," which I thought, if only it was that easy. But that obviously is a point of interest about this book and about the other books that I've written. It now rather surprises me because I'm so used to the fact that that's where I'm writing from as it were. And I think from the start I always wanted to write from a presupposition of the gay position of the narrator. And to take that for granted as most novels...it's taken for granted that they're from the heterosexual position, but having done that to go on to talk about all sorts of other things. So I only chafe at the "gay writer" tag if it's thought to describe everything that's interesting about my books. Because actually the lives of gay people aren't just about being gay, they're about all their other human interests.

Posted at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Comments

i think that virtually every chicano writer i know can relate to hollinghurst's comments. on the one hand, many of us are proud to be recognized as chicano. on the other hand, the very designation presumes that the "norm" in this country is the white writer while those outside that group must be defined. for example, i have been called "one of the best and most original hispanic american authors working today." but imagine if philip roth were referred to as "one of the best and most original white american authors working today." sounds a bit odd, doesn't it?

Posted by: daniel olivas | May 11, 2005 at 12:34 AM

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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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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.
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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

May 11, 2005

HOLLINGHURST SPEAKS

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 11, 2005

HOLLINGHURST SPEAKS

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