Subject
Good vs bad writing: Nabokov talks of midges "continuously
darning the air in one spot," ...
darning the air in one spot," ...
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Date
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----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:30:50 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200210u/int2002-10-02[1] Atlantic
Unbound | Interviews
...on the literature of shuffles," I feel nothing; the wordplay is
just too insincere, too patently meaningless. But when NABOKOV talks
of midges "continuously darning the air in one spot," or the "square
echo" of a car door slamming,... Interviews
B. R. Myers, the author of _A Reader's Manifesto,_ argues that the
time has come for readers to stand up to the literary establishment
.....
_A Reader's Manifesto_
by B. R. Myers
Melville House
160 pages, $9.95
_ he glowing critical endorsements and prestigious award seals
adorning the typical book jacket of the latest acclaimed "literary"
novel suggest that the text within represents a superior example of
contemporary prose. But is this necessarily true? One disgruntled
reader, a man from New Mexico named B. R. Myers, emphatically
believes that it is not. In "A Reader's Manifesto," published last
year in The Atlantic,_ Myers launched a sharp attack on the
pretentiousness of contemporary literary prose, raising the hackles
of critics and authors alike. Myers's biting assessments of many
admired works were fiercely debated both by readers and professional
critics. This fall Myers has published the uncut version of his
article in book form, along with a section in which he responds to
some of the criticisms that the magazine article provoked.Myers
argues that the typical "literary masterpiece" of today is usually in
fact a mediocre work dolled up with trendy writerly gimmicks designed
to lend an impression of artsy profundity and to obscure the author's
lack of talent. An affected, deliberately unnatural prose style, banal
pronouncements intoned magisterially as if they were great pearls of
wisdom, relentless overuse of wordplay, and the gratuitous inclusion
of foreign words are just a few of the affronts to good writing of
which Myers finds several well-known authors guilty.Though readers
don't tend to get much pleasure from the books that are selected for
literary stardom, they usually wrongly attribute the problem to
themselves, Myers explains, assuming that if a critically celebrated
work fails to speak to them, it must point to their own lack of taste
or limited understanding. Compounding the problem, he argues, is the
fact that today's criticsmost of whom are novelists themselvestry
to foster the idea that good writing is recognizable to sophisticated
literary connoisseurs but is beyond the ken of ordinary folk.Critics
seem to have a hard time discussing prose in a straightforward
manner.... At best they will quote one or two sentences from the
text, usually the most stilted ones they can find, along with some
empty remark like "now _that's_ great writing."Or rather [they use
words like] "evocative" and "compelling," conveniently vague
attributes that have become _the_ literary catchwords of our
time....The implication is always the same: "If you can't see why
that's great writing, I won't waste my time trying to explain." To
support his contention that the critically acclaimed novels of today
are not as good as the critics say, he performs irreverent close
readings of a selection of excerpts from the works of five celebrated
authors (Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, David Guterson, Cormac McCarthy,
and Annie Proulx), and demonstrates how, if one really focuses on
these texts, one finds that many of them are awkwardly phrased,
unnecessarily repetitive, or simply don't make sense. (Lest readers
assume that Myers has unfairly sought out the worst examples he could
find, he points out that he has selected mostly excerpts already
singled out for praise by literary establishment reviewers.) Myers's
goal, he explains, is to convey to fellow readers that they shouldn't
feel cowed into reading (and pretending to be engaged by) the latest
dull and pretentious book just because the literary establishment has
pronounced it "evocative" and "compelling." Rather, Myers emphasizes,
readers should trust their own instincts, and decide for themselves
what books speak to them in meaningful ways.When Don DeLillo
describes a man's walk as "a sort of explanatory shuffle, a comment
on the literature of shuffles," I feel nothing; the wordplay is just
too insincere, too patently meaningless. But when Nabokov talks of
midges "continuously darning the air in one spot," or the "square
echo" of a car door slamming, I feel what Philip Larkin hoped readers
of his poetry would feel: "Yes, I've never thought of it that way, but
that's how it is."[These days] it is the unassuming storyteller who is
reviled, while mediocrities who puff themselves up to produce gabby
"literary" fiction are guaranteed a certain respect, presumably for
aiming high.... It is as easy to aim high as to aim low. Isn't it
time we went back to judging writers on whether they hit the mark?
[2]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200210u/int2002-10-02
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200507
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:30:50 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200210u/int2002-10-02[1] Atlantic
Unbound | Interviews
...on the literature of shuffles," I feel nothing; the wordplay is
just too insincere, too patently meaningless. But when NABOKOV talks
of midges "continuously darning the air in one spot," or the "square
echo" of a car door slamming,... Interviews
B. R. Myers, the author of _A Reader's Manifesto,_ argues that the
time has come for readers to stand up to the literary establishment
.....
_A Reader's Manifesto_
by B. R. Myers
Melville House
160 pages, $9.95
_ he glowing critical endorsements and prestigious award seals
adorning the typical book jacket of the latest acclaimed "literary"
novel suggest that the text within represents a superior example of
contemporary prose. But is this necessarily true? One disgruntled
reader, a man from New Mexico named B. R. Myers, emphatically
believes that it is not. In "A Reader's Manifesto," published last
year in The Atlantic,_ Myers launched a sharp attack on the
pretentiousness of contemporary literary prose, raising the hackles
of critics and authors alike. Myers's biting assessments of many
admired works were fiercely debated both by readers and professional
critics. This fall Myers has published the uncut version of his
article in book form, along with a section in which he responds to
some of the criticisms that the magazine article provoked.Myers
argues that the typical "literary masterpiece" of today is usually in
fact a mediocre work dolled up with trendy writerly gimmicks designed
to lend an impression of artsy profundity and to obscure the author's
lack of talent. An affected, deliberately unnatural prose style, banal
pronouncements intoned magisterially as if they were great pearls of
wisdom, relentless overuse of wordplay, and the gratuitous inclusion
of foreign words are just a few of the affronts to good writing of
which Myers finds several well-known authors guilty.Though readers
don't tend to get much pleasure from the books that are selected for
literary stardom, they usually wrongly attribute the problem to
themselves, Myers explains, assuming that if a critically celebrated
work fails to speak to them, it must point to their own lack of taste
or limited understanding. Compounding the problem, he argues, is the
fact that today's criticsmost of whom are novelists themselvestry
to foster the idea that good writing is recognizable to sophisticated
literary connoisseurs but is beyond the ken of ordinary folk.Critics
seem to have a hard time discussing prose in a straightforward
manner.... At best they will quote one or two sentences from the
text, usually the most stilted ones they can find, along with some
empty remark like "now _that's_ great writing."Or rather [they use
words like] "evocative" and "compelling," conveniently vague
attributes that have become _the_ literary catchwords of our
time....The implication is always the same: "If you can't see why
that's great writing, I won't waste my time trying to explain." To
support his contention that the critically acclaimed novels of today
are not as good as the critics say, he performs irreverent close
readings of a selection of excerpts from the works of five celebrated
authors (Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, David Guterson, Cormac McCarthy,
and Annie Proulx), and demonstrates how, if one really focuses on
these texts, one finds that many of them are awkwardly phrased,
unnecessarily repetitive, or simply don't make sense. (Lest readers
assume that Myers has unfairly sought out the worst examples he could
find, he points out that he has selected mostly excerpts already
singled out for praise by literary establishment reviewers.) Myers's
goal, he explains, is to convey to fellow readers that they shouldn't
feel cowed into reading (and pretending to be engaged by) the latest
dull and pretentious book just because the literary establishment has
pronounced it "evocative" and "compelling." Rather, Myers emphasizes,
readers should trust their own instincts, and decide for themselves
what books speak to them in meaningful ways.When Don DeLillo
describes a man's walk as "a sort of explanatory shuffle, a comment
on the literature of shuffles," I feel nothing; the wordplay is just
too insincere, too patently meaningless. But when Nabokov talks of
midges "continuously darning the air in one spot," or the "square
echo" of a car door slamming, I feel what Philip Larkin hoped readers
of his poetry would feel: "Yes, I've never thought of it that way, but
that's how it is."[These days] it is the unassuming storyteller who is
reviled, while mediocrities who puff themselves up to produce gabby
"literary" fiction are guaranteed a certain respect, presumably for
aiming high.... It is as easy to aim high as to aim low. Isn't it
time we went back to judging writers on whether they hit the mark?
[2]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200210u/int2002-10-02
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200507
----- End forwarded message -----