The Elegant Variation: Here's to William James

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March 06, 2007

Here's to William James

Jessa Crispin at Bookslut isn't the only one with a crush on William James. Here's an interview with Robert Richardson, author of the relatively new biography of James called In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, published by Houghton Mifflin and, from what I can tell, universally praised. In the interview, Richardson discusses -- who knew? -- James' godfathering of AA. He argues that James' position was that all conversion was an individual process which could include, for some, conversion to miserliness, for others conversion to irreligion -- and so why not conversion to sobriety?

Do recovering alcoholics really read The Varieties of Religious Experience more than the Big Book?

I'd like to talk about what bothers me about James, but I find it difficult to say anything against Varieties. It's really undistilled genius. Yet ... yet ... taken to an extreme (I suppose this is the case with any religious phenomenon), James' elevation of the individual above all doctrine, custom, and institution might devolve from the healthy "I have a personal relationship with God" mindset so thoroughly examined in Varieties into an ignorant, incurious grandstanding, and much worse beyond. Josiah Royce responds nicely to this in The Sources of Religious Insight, which examines in part what one might learn about God through community, especially a community made up of individuals loyal to a cause greater than themselves.

Posted at 09:18 PM in Guest Bloggers | Permalink

Comments

I think you're a little hard on James. The Varieties began as a lecture series and he limited himself to the personal religious experience in order to circumscribe the topic and not because he felt the personal constituted all of religious experience. (Leave it to his dear friend and philosophical enemy Josiah Royce to address Varieties' lack). It's also instructive that James considered Varieties "popular" writing and far less important than his philosophy.

As for crushes on Wm. James--I wrote about this phenomenon and much other Jamesiana in my novel Jamesland. (For example, Did you know that he is the subject of more academic papers than any other American philosopher? Did you know that he appears to more psychics than anybody except Elvis?ETC. )

Posted by: Michelle Huneven | March 07, 2007 at 09:03 AM

Just a quick note to Michelle Huneven to say I loved your Jamesland. I especially admired--and noticed--all the background work you did. And the So Cal setting was perfect. thanks for your book.

Posted by: Bob Richardson | March 14, 2007 at 08:04 AM

Greetings to all

Posted by: Traser Watches | March 19, 2007 at 01:30 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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SECOND LOOK

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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 06, 2007

Here's to William James

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 06, 2007

Here's to William James

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