The Elegant Variation: LITERARY WRITE-IN

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July 25, 2007

LITERARY WRITE-IN

We were tooling along on the Santa Monica Freeway the other day when we noticed this amusing bumper sticker:

B00643

It turns out - in keeping with the devotion that the Aubrey-Maturin series inspires - that there's a website devoted to logging sightings of related bumper stickers.

The sticker certainly brings the judgment of O'Brian fans into some question. Setting aside the Constitutional questions (neither man is a natural born American citizen), one has to wonder about the wisdom of floating a noted laudanum addict for the number two spot. We've only read Master and Commander, the first book in the series, so we can't say for certain but Aubrey doesn't appear to lack the necessary leadership qualities. Which got us thinking - how many US presidents came up through the Navy? Given that the Navy was created in 1798, the answer may surprise you - only six presidents, and all comparatively recent ones.

But the more interesting question we're left with is which literary characters might make good presidents? It's kind of hard to imagine anyone more attractive than that paragon of decency, Atticus Finch. And perhaps the steadiness of a Nick Carraway might make him a good number two. Mischievous choices for a presidential stint might include Grady Tripp (no questions about inhaling) or, call us twisted, Mickey Sabbath. (He'd always be entertaining.) And Ignatius J. Reilly's State of the Union would be worth tuning in for. In a more serious vein, we're kinda partial to Doc Ricketts although, technically, he was a real guy. All in all, we suspect Aubrey-Maturin aren't the best presidential material literature has to offer.

If you've got some killer literary presidential candidates, drop us a line or just record your ballot in the comments box below.

Posted at 12:01 AM in Hors catégorie | Permalink

Comments

Mickey Sabbath would be the ideal string-puller (or finger-wiggler) behind (or inside)the titular head; I'd vote for Seymour "Swede" Levov for titular head. The glove-making motif dovetails nicely with the hand-puppetry, too.

Posted by: Steven Augustine | July 25, 2007 at 06:54 AM

How about some women? I nominate Melanie Wilkes, from Gone With the Wind. She annoyed me when I was younger, but now that I'm wiser, I can appreciate her steadfastness and consensus-building. She even won the respect of Belle Watling!

Posted by: Leslie | July 25, 2007 at 08:37 AM

Holly Martins and Harry Lime to keep the buffoon/string puller motif going.

Posted by: Jim | July 25, 2007 at 09:09 AM

Tyrone Slothrop. If he pulls a Monica-gate, DC blows up.

Posted by: Andrew | July 25, 2007 at 09:27 AM

Quixote/Panza should be the ticket for our healthcare mess...and Iraq...and oh, anything else it seems.

Posted by: Jim L | July 25, 2007 at 10:47 AM

Beckett's narrator from the Unnamable - 'his' various identities could fill the entire cabinet. And imagine the State of the Union addresses!

Posted by: EG | July 25, 2007 at 10:47 AM

Eel O'Brien-Lamont Cranston

Posted by: Jack Pendarvis | July 25, 2007 at 03:25 PM

Gore Vidal's Lincoln / and to balance the ticket by herself, Myra Breckenridge.

Posted by: Capybara | July 25, 2007 at 03:46 PM

Ahab/Fedallah, a ticket that has certain parallels to our current administration...

Posted by: Erin | July 25, 2007 at 07:34 PM

Moll Flanders--hott!

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | July 26, 2007 at 05:33 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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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

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Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

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*Now in Paperback*

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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

July 25, 2007

LITERARY WRITE-IN

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

July 25, 2007

LITERARY WRITE-IN

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