The Elegant Variation: JAMES FREY FINALLY GETS A BREAK

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February 24, 2006

JAMES FREY FINALLY GETS A BREAK

There's an old political adage that there's no need to attack your opponent when he's busy committing suicide. Which is why we don't have a whole lot to say about the extraordinary self-delusion displayed by Kate Braverman in today's Los Angeles Times.

"I'm not just another writer. I don't think people understand my relationship with this city, and they don't understand what I've achieved," Braverman declares, as she sits in Guelaguetza, the Oaxacan mole mecca, near her childhood haunts in Mar Vista.

She's dressed in a black flamenco-style skirt, with black-stiletto-heeled boots, and a long black coat with flame-red trim — a style the San Francisco Chronicle described as "Morticia Addams gone gypsy." Her eyelids and earrings are dusted with gold.

"There is not another woman writer in Southern California who sits between Bellow and Conrad [TEV NOTE: We assume she means alphabetically.] next to Hemingway and Kafka. I have the most literary stature, certainly, of any woman in Southern California," Braverman says — a view that might not be held by fans of such writers as Joan Didion, Carolyn See or Alice Sebold.

Braverman is clearly a graduate of the Dale Peck School of Headline Grabbing. Well, at least we all have someone new to laugh at for a while.

Posted at 10:23 AM in Words Fail | Permalink

Comments

Once the outrage subsided, I started to question the ethics of a newspaper allowing someone so obviously delusional to expose herself so nakedly. It's all very sad, really.

Posted by: John Shannon | February 24, 2006 at 02:04 PM

This says it all: " 'I made a conscious decision that I would prefer to live with the often debilitating effects of my mental problem and be a functional writer,' she said."

Posted by: Steven Augustine | February 24, 2006 at 04:02 PM

It's terribly embarrassing, isn't it? Every line made me cringe. And to say of students who went on to success: "They wouldn't exist without me" -- crikey.

Posted by: Karen | February 24, 2006 at 05:01 PM

She's dressed in a black flamenco-style skirt, with black-stiletto-heeled boots, and a long black coat with flame-red trim

David Rakoff once described that wardrobe as "Southwestern pot-smoker chic."

Posted by: The Sanity Inspector | February 24, 2006 at 07:38 PM

Oh good lord. And please pass me my eyes if you see them. I think they just rolled on onto the floor.

Posted by: Kevin Smokler | February 24, 2006 at 11:02 PM

Kate Braverman and Raymond Carver are cut from the same cloth, and a fabulous fabric that is indeed....

I finally got to meet a Literary IDOL of mine since 1979 at Dutton's in Brentwood the other night. That would be KATE BRAVERMAN.

Palm Latitudes and Frida K will go down in Feminist Literary History & ..... I can't wait to see what she is going to write about her time in San Fran.

She's 'bout the only reason I'd drive 93 miles south...& did.

xxoo!

Posted by: valentine bonnaire | February 25, 2006 at 12:21 PM

Nice try, Kate...

Posted by: Steven Augustine | February 25, 2006 at 01:21 PM

I was in disbelief until I reached the bit about her mental illness and then it became just sad. I agree that it was, at the very least, unkind of the Times to run the piece in light of that. Her quotes are so grandiose that they do have the sound of a bipolar rant.

Posted by: Silvie Paul | February 25, 2006 at 05:25 PM

While the Times certainly exposes these comments to a greater audience, from those who attended a reading of hers recently in Ann Arbor, MI, everybody who runs into her is hearing the exact same thing from her in terms of her importance.

Posted by: Dan Wickett | February 26, 2006 at 06:12 PM

I hope this isn't gauche, but anybody who has been reading here might be interested to see this Braverman article.
http://www.virtualvenice.info/poets/braverman.htm

Posted by: Pat Hartman | September 15, 2006 at 09:32 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

February 24, 2006

JAMES FREY FINALLY GETS A BREAK

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

February 24, 2006

JAMES FREY FINALLY GETS A BREAK

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