The Elegant Variation: WHERE WE GO NEXT (PLUS, OF COURSE, BANVILLE)

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May 31, 2011

WHERE WE GO NEXT (PLUS, OF COURSE, BANVILLE)

What is to become of TEV?

I’m not entirely sure yet. The benign neglect that has characterized the last year or so might well be an indication that it’s time to pack things in. Yet there’s something in me that stops me from pulling the plug. I continue to value the intelligent discussion with smart, committed and opinionated readers and, despite the overwhelming number of book-related sites, I continue to find that sort of dialogue in strangely short supply.

In recent weeks I’ve read a number of posts at lauded sites, sites I admire, written by folks I like, and I’ve been, well, dismayed at how lousy they can be. But that’s nothing, in and of itself – we all have our off days, we’ve all written things we probably would like to take back.

What I found more troubling was the chorus of commenters who would invariably leap in after each post declaiming its virtues. And I’ve come to believe that perhaps the problem with the internet isn’t that it gives voice to every crank with a keyboard and a broadband connection. No, it may be that the insidious thing is the insularity of the waiting chorus of those who champion mediocrity, who validate self-indulgence or unoriginal thinking.

So, what I can say is that the days of daily updates of literary news are probably over. That sort of thing is crazy time-consuming but, more importantly, I’m just not as interested in this prize and that obituary as I once was. Plus I have some considerable life changes to navigate, not to mention a novel to finish.

What I will continue to do is to run interviews with authors of note; to point out books I think are worthy of your attention and to wave you off the overrated ones; to take this piss out of the occasional blowhard; to draw your attention to especially thoughtful essays and discussions online; to continue to post about teaching and share some of my writing lessons; to post longer, random train of thought essays (like this one) and to discuss second novel travails. (A new post on that subject is in the works.)

And, of course, I will continue to advise you on all matters Banville-related.

Speaking of which, I’ve been asked several times about my failure to discuss Banville’s latest novel The Infinites. Some people have taken my relative silence to be somehow damning. Not the case. There are three reasons why I haven’t talked as much about the novel as I might.

First, I’ve come to realize that there is an assumption among my readers that a Banville novel is a pre-sold quantity to me. I’m not sure that’s entirely inaccurate, but at a minimum, I suspect no TEV reader would have been much surprised to see me endorse the novel. (Which, incidentally, I do.)

Second, many of you are likely to remember that Banville was kind enough to blurb Harry, Revised. And so I found myself perhaps a bit oversensitive to accusations of logrolling and the like. On the one hand, I’ve seen enough about the ecology of blurbs that I’ve come to understand they are, as often as not, gestures of friendship as they are of critical respect. (Think of the familiar round-robin of names that routinely surfaces on the back of any novel by Believer alumni.) On the other, a good book is a good book, whether written by a friend or foe, and I’ve come to see it seems excessively fastidious not to say so. Still, I continue to pick up books hopefully, gambling each time against experience that a blurb will be meaningful, and so I’ve been a bit reluctant to further undermine an already debased form.

Finally, and most relevant, I hadn’t actually read the book until last month.

How on earth is that possible? Let me explain. MOTEV called me some weeks ago to inform me that her book group had turned to The Infinities, and she was loving it. She was eager to discuss it with me, when I had to shamefacedly admit I hadn’t read it yet. I had started it when it came out, but I’d set it aside and now I couldn’t remember the reason. The last year really has been tumultuous, and amid my personal travails and focus on my novel, much has fallen by wayside.

So I picked up the book and began it again, and was thrilled anew as I always am by Banville’s prose. After a dozen pages or so, I remembered why I’d put it down. My novel is, among other things, about a character dealing with the death of his father. Which is one of the main themes of The Infinities. I decided that I wanted to avoid any additional Banville influence – as it is, anyone who has read The Book of Evidence will immediately see that my book is a rip-off, um, homage to this earlier work. So I decided to wait.

Unfortunately, Novel 2 has taken much longer than planned – subject of the future post – and I realized at this rate, it might be years before I could read it. And I remembered something Joseph O’Neill said when I interviewed him:

TEV: Do you read fiction while you are writing fiction?

Joseph O’Neill: I do. And I might do a couple of quick laps, and that’s it. It depends. Obviously, I can’t go seven years without reading a book. If I’m stuck for juice, I will go back to certain writers or investigate new writers and find out what’s going on.

TEV: Will there be any risk of seepage when that happens?

Joseph O’Neill: I hope so. I mean, you want a little bit of that. You know, you’ve got be grown up about influences. I think you’ve either got it or you haven’t. By ‘it’ I mean the knack of writing something valuable that’s your own. So if you are worried about being influenced, it’s almost a pointless worry. Either you’re going to be influenced or you’re not going to be influenced—it doesn’t change anything, it’s all about whether you have the knack. Anyway, the alternative is to not read anything. And no one can be a writer without being familiar with other writers.

And so I decided to bring it, and I’m glad I did. The Infinites is superb, and O’Neill is right, it makes a difference. Which makes it a timely moment for Harold Bloom’s latest to land on my desk. About which I intend to say more in the future. For now, I leave things here in a state of fragile equipoise, and I assure you posting here will continue, as the form struggles to make itself known to me.

Posted at 12:37 PM in Housekeeping, Obsessions, Trains of Thought | Permalink

Comments

I for one will continue to check in. Your posts are interesting and further the necessary, literature-affirming conversation.

Posted by: L.G | June 01, 2011 at 01:35 AM

Although I love my readers, there's something about the Internet (medium is message) that exerts on the writer of a post (me included) a gravitational pull toward either the shallow or the pompous. I don't know why. It just skews the tone.

But some successfully avoid that; you have, so I hope you continue.

Posted by: Shelley | June 01, 2011 at 08:20 AM

I was a lurker around many literary blogs for a time - but now read (and sometimes post comments on) only two, of which (obviously) yours is one. I abandoned the others because of the self-satisified tone that seems almost unavoidable in such blogs. Even though I agreed which much of what was being said I just got very sick of the constant self-congratulation that hummed beneath the surface.
A long-winded way of saying that I, too, hope you continue to post - otherwise my blog reading will be reduced to one lonely blog!

Posted by: melbournegirl | June 02, 2011 at 08:08 PM

The chorus of praise has more to do with good old-fashioned sucking up than mediocrity as such (though there's probably a relationship).

Posted by: Lee | June 03, 2011 at 09:53 AM

What's depressing, I find, is the discourse on Twitter, and yes, I'm talking about the mini messages related to writing. A lot about book signings, reviews, of genre, the romance, paranormal, thriller, gushed over by someone, often a publicist, or the creator. Rarely is a literary work mentioned, the closest I've seen, after weeks, was this morning. "The Confederacy of Dunces." My own novel has, thus far, has drawn interest from a lady in Venice, CA. Facebook isn't much better, though the author sites do offer opportunities. Those "likes" from followers of someone like William Trevor, or to widen scope of "literary," Gary Schteyngart, who has jotted a few words about my comments, both of which can make you feel, well, appreciated.

Posted by: ward jones | June 03, 2011 at 10:51 AM

Nietzschian rants aside, shouldn't blogs be about discussion and discovery?

Posted by: the fool | June 03, 2011 at 05:09 PM

I hope you continue. You provide a sharp insight into literary issues that is found wanting on other sites.

Also, you never write. You never call. You don't tweet. I sit in the dark glow of my laptop wondering if you're still alive. This is the only way . . . I'm sorry, I'm too faklempt.

Posted by: C- | June 03, 2011 at 07:11 PM

Fragile equipoise is a good description of the state of individual litblogs (or maybe just yours and mine) in 2011.

Also, I have a letter coming out next Sunday in the NYTBR on the subject of Bloom's latest... : )

Hoping all is well w/you and yours...

Posted by: Anne | June 06, 2011 at 05:31 AM

I come here to meet chicks. Please don't take that from me.

Posted by: Konstantin | June 06, 2011 at 08:30 PM

Am here as your wingman, K.

Posted by: TEV | June 07, 2011 at 11:56 AM

I come here to recharge my sanity detector.

Posted by: [email protected] | June 12, 2011 at 12:49 AM

Me, too.

Chicks dig dudes who are aware of partial sanity.

Posted by: Konstantin | June 12, 2011 at 06:20 PM

i encourage you to keep posting ay whatever intervals work for you. i appreciate your thoughts, information and reflectuions about books.

thanks for all you have shared till now.

bert hirsch
new york city/buenos aires

Posted by: bert hirsch | June 14, 2011 at 10:22 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

MY NOVEL

HARRY, REVISED - Get all the details here.

TOUR DATES

WORTHY READINGS

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

With rave reviews from James Wood, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner, it might not seem like we need to tell you to drop everything and go read Netherland, but we are telling you, and here's why: The way book coverage works these days, everyone talks about the same book for about two or three weeks, and then they move on and the book is more or less forgotten. Whereas a berth here in the Recommended sidebar keeps noteworthy titles in view for a good, long time, which is the sort of sustained attention this marvelous novel deserves. A Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness, it's an unforgettable New York story in which the post 9/11 lives of Hans, a Dutch banker estranged from his English wife, and Chuck Ramkissoon, a mysterious cricket entrepreneur, intertwine. The New York City of the immigrant margins is unforgettably invoked in gorgeous, precise prose, and the novel's luminous conclusion is a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging. Our strongest possible recommendation.
Dictation: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick

"History," wrote Henry James in a 1910 letter to his amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet, "is strangely written." This casual aside could easily serve as the epigraph of Cynthia Ozick's superb new collection Dictation, which concerns itself with lost worlds evoked by languages -- languages which separate and obscure as readily as they bind. It can be risky to look for connective tissue between stories written years apart and published in magazines ranging from The Conradian to The New Yorker. But themes of deception, posterity, and above all, the glory of language -- at once malleable and intractable -- knit together this quartet, recasting the whole as the harmonious product of Ozick's formidable talent. Read the entire review here
Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Now, on the one hand, you scarcely need us to alert you to the existence of a new J.M. Coetzee novel, or even to have us tell you it's worth reading. But we can tell you - we insist on telling you that Diary of a Bad Year is a triumph, easily Coetzee's most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace. Formally inventive, the book intertwines two narratives with the author's own Strong Opinions, a series of seemingly discrete philosophical and political essays. The cumulative effect of this strange trio is deeply moving and thought provoking. It's increasingly rare in this thoroughly post-post-modern age to raise the kind of questions in fiction Coetzee handles so masterfully - right down to what is it, exactly, that we expect (or need) from our novels. It's telling that, for all of his serious pronouncements on subjects ranging from censorship to pedophilia to the use of torture, it's finally a few pages from The Brothers Karamazov that brings him to tears. Moving, wise and - how's this for a surprise - funny and lightly self-mocking, Diary of a Bad Year might well be the book of the year and Coetzee is surely our essential novelist. We haven't stopped thinking about it since we set it down.
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

David Leavitt's magnificent new novel tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the British mathematician G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, mathematical autodidact and prodigy who had been working as a clerk in Madras, and who would turn out to be one of the great mathematical minds of the century. Ramanujan reluctantly joined Hardy in England - a move that would ultimately prove to his detriment - and the men set to work on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, one of mathematics' great unsolved problems. The Indian Clerk, an epic and elegant work which spans continents and decades, encompasses a World War, and boasts a cast of characters that includes Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lytton Strachey. Leavitt renders the complex mathematics in a manner that resonates emotionally as well as intellectually, and writes with crystalline elegance. The metaphor of the prime number – divisible only by one and itself – is beautifully apt for this tale of these two isolated geniuses. Leavitt's control of this dense, sprawling material is impressive – astonishing, at times – and yet despite its scope, he keeps us focused on his great themes of unknowability and identity. The Indian Clerk might be set in the past but it doesn't resemble most so-called "historical fiction." Rather, it's an ageless meditation on the quests for knowledge and for the self – and how frequently the two are intertwined – that is, finally, as timeless as the music of the primes. (View our full week of coverage here.)
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris' warm and funny debut novel is an antidote to the sneering likes of The Office and Max Barry's Company. Treating his characters with both affection and respect, Ferris takes us into a Chicago ad agency at the onset of the dot-bomb. Careers are in jeopardy, nerves are frayed and petty turf wars are fought. But there are bigger stakes in the balance, and Ferris' weirdly indeterminate point of view that's mostly first person plural, underscores the shared humanity of everyone who has ever had to sit behind a desk. It's a luminous, affecting debut and you can read the first chapter right here.
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

Coming to these shores at last, John Banville's thriller, written under the nom de plume Benjamin Black, has drawn rave reviews across the pond since it first appeared last October. Those who feared Banville might turn in an overly literary effort needn't worry. Influenced by Simenon's romans durs (hard stories), Banville unspools a dark mystery set in 1950s Dublin concerning itself with, among other things, the church's trade in orphans. At the heart of the book is the coroner Quirke, a Banvillean creation on par with Alex Cleave and Freddie Montgomery. Dublin is rendered with a damp, creaky specificity – you can almost taste the whisky.
The Paris Review Interviews, I by The Paris Review and Philip Gourevitch

Scanning our Recommended selections, one might conclude we're addicted to interviews, and one would be correct. If author interviews are like crack to us, then the Paris Review author interviews must surely be the gold standard of crack (a comparison Plimpton might not have embraced). The newly issued The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I (Picador) rolls out the heavy hitters. Who can possibly turn away from the likes of Saul Bellow, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy Parker, Robert Gottlieb and others? The interviews are formal and thoughtful but never dry and can replace any dozen "how-to" books on writing. What can be more comforting than hearing Bellow, answering a question on preparations and conception, admit "Well, I don't know exactly how it's done.” The best part of this collection? The "Volume I" in the title, with its promise of more volumes to come.
The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio

The best short story collection we've read since ... well, certainly since we've started this blog. And we might even say "ever" if Dubliners didn't cast such a long shadow. The short story is not our preferred form but D'Ambrosio's eight brilliant stories are almost enough to convert us. Defy the conventional wisdom that short story collections don't sell and treat yourself to this marvel. (We're especially partial, naturally, to "Screenwriter".)
The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier
*Now in Paperback*

What would you do if the woman who’d left you high and dry ten years ago called out of the blue to invite you to a party without any further explanation? If you’re French, you’d probably spend a lot of time pondering the Deeper Significance Of It All, which is exactly what Grégoire Bouillier does for the 120 hilarious pages of The Mystery Guest. This slim, witty memoir follows Bouillier through the party from hell, and is a case study in Gallic self-abasement. Before it’s all done, you’ll set fire to any turtleneck hanging in your closet and think twice before buying an expensive Bordeaux as a gift. But fear not – just when it seems that all is, indeed, random and pointless and there is no Deeper Significance, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of Virginia Woolf, and the tale ends on a note of unforced optimism. Parfait.
Ticknor by Sheila Heti

When George Ticknor's Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled. As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott's house ("But I am not a late man. I hate to be late."), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings a leavening poignancy to this brief tale. But don't let the size fool you — this 109-page first novel is small but scarcely slight; it is as dense and textured as a truffle.
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers by Vendela Vida

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you and yes, we are recommending a Believer product. Twenty-three interviews (a third presented for the first time) pairing the likes of Zadie Smith with Ian McEwan, Jonathan Lethem with Paul Auster, Edward P. Jones and ZZ Packer, and Adam Thirwell with Tom Stoppard make this collection a must-read. Lifted out of the context of some of the magazine's worst twee excesses, the interviews stand admirably on their own as largely thoughtful dialogues on craft. A handful of interviewers seem more interested in themselves than in their subjects but in the main this collection will prove irresistible to writers of any stripe - struggling or established - and to readers seeking a window into the creative process.
The Sea by John Banville

John Banville's latest novel returns him to the Booker Prize shortlist for the first time since 1989's The Book of Evidence. In The Sea, we find Banville in transition, moving from the icy, restrained narrators of The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud toward warmer climes. Max Morden has returned to the vacation spot of his youth as he grieves the death of his wife. Remembering his first, fatal love, Morden works to reconcile himself to his loss. Banville's trademark linguistic virtuosity is everpresent but some of the chilly control is relinquished and Max mourns and rages in ways that mark a new direction for Banville - and there's at least one great twist which you'll never see coming. Given the politicized nature of the British literary scene, Banville's shot at the prize might be hobbled by his controversial McEwan review but we're rooting for our longtime favorite to go all the way at last. UPDATE: Our man won!
Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

We've been fans of Booker Prize winner John Berger for ages, and we're delighted to have received an early copy of his latest work, Here is Where We Meet. In this lovely, elliptical, melancholy "fictional memoir," Berger traverses European cities from Libson to Geneva to Islington, conversing with shades from his past – He encounters his dead mother on a Lisbon tram, a beloved mentor in a Krakow market. Along the way, we're treated to marvelous and occasionally heart-rending glimpses of an extraordinary life, a lyrical elegy to the 20th century from a man who - in his eighth decade - remains committed to his political beliefs and almost childlike in his openness to people, places and experiences. There's no conventional narrative here, and those seeking plot are advised to look elsewhere. But Here is Where We Meet offers a wise, moving and poetic look at the life of an artist traversing the European century from a novelist whose talent remains undimmed in his twilight years.
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

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.
The Rider by Tim Krabbe

Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

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 31, 2011

WHERE WE GO NEXT (PLUS, OF COURSE, BANVILLE)

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 31, 2011

WHERE WE GO NEXT (PLUS, OF COURSE, BANVILLE)

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