March 2007

A small but mighty group of tough-minded individuals finally worked our way through Thomas Pynchon’s new monster over the last few months. I think we’ve now settled on a pace that works for us, and even more importantly, we’ve selected our book for the next few meetings. I’d like to extend the reading group invitation to anybody out there interested in joining us.

Here’s how it works:

• The group meets every other Thursday at 7:30PM. Most of our meetings have been in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle at local pubs. If anyone wants to try reading remotely, let me know and we can try to make that work using the blog comments as a discussion forum.
• We spend at least half our time drinking, making small talk, and eating. If you’re a high-powered lit-nerd, you may want to find a more appropriate outlet for your snobby prowess.
• The idea of the group is to read challenging works which benefit from multiple points of view. We’ll vote on books as we approach the time for the next one to begin.
• We’ve found that 75-80 pages per week is our pace. Any more and people start to crumble under the obligation. The number of meetings we have will generally be based on page count.

The next book we’ve decided to read is “Poor People,” by William T. Vollmann (see the New York Times review here). We’ll be meeting March 29th to discuss the first 150-160 pages. You can purchase your copy (and support this blog) by clicking the image below:

I just discovered a lovely blog with a provocative literary angle. Written by Julie Wilson from Toronto, Canada, Seen Reading is her little peep-show into the reading lives of others. It’s her creative amalgamation of a person she saw reading, a quote from the work, and literary interpretation of what she imagines the person must have been sensing while reading.

Personally, I’ve always been intrigued about what you could tell from people by their bookshelves. I guess I’ve subsconsiously always done what Julie publicly posts via this blog. That’s what makes her idea so fascinating. These are the narrative realities we create for the people we don’t know, based on the fewest of details.

What Is Seen Reading?

* 1. I see you reading.
* 2. I guesstimate where you are in the book.
* 3. I trip on over to the bookstore and make a note of the text.
* 4. I let my imagination rip.
* 5. Readers become celebrities.
* 6. People get giddy and buy more books.

This is one of my secret books.

You know, one of those surprises you find and then covet. Just listen to the opening paragraph.

In the attic where the rain touched the roof softly on spring days and where you could feel the mantle of snow outside, a few inches away, on December nights, A Thousand Times Great Grandmere existed. She did not live, nor was she eternally dead, she…existed.

It reads more like verse than prose. The entire book is a dreamlike experience, for although it includes all the relevant creatures of the undead within it, it does not read like any other “horror” book I’ve ever read. The problems faced by the undead “family” are unique but, in their own way, inevitable.

As you read it, you think you recognize some of the family members, Dracula for one, but they are woven into the story and talked about in such a sideways manner that you begin to think that the “family” is the true story and all the legends are distortions on their reality.

The book itself is actually a group of short stories about the family that Bradbury wrote over a 40 year period. Some have been published, some not. This is one of those books that makes you sit up and wonder, “Why haven’t I read more of Bradbury [or insert another author here]“. Because it truly shows his brilliance.

You will enjoy it and you will come back to it.

I spent several days before the arrival of Miéville’s new book telling people how pleased I was to get my hands on “Oon Loon Doon.” Sometimes, I really am an idiot (btw, it’s pronounced “un-London”). Please quit nodding your head.

I daresay that most of “Un Lun Dun’s” intended audience will get that pronunciation straight away, without the need to have it as painstakingly spelled out to them. That’s because this book is geared at the burgeoning “smart teenager / young adult” market, those looking for something more intellectually stimulating, dark, and less known than certain other other famous mega-blockbusters for that market. It’s a bit like Harry Potter for goths, resembling The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Grimm Fairy Tales all rolled in to one wacky and oddly instructive package.

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The decline and fall of the English Language.

This is an extraordinary essay written in 1946 by George Orwell: Politics and the English Language - read it.

If you are a writer and wish to improve your craft, I recomend it highly. In fact I can think of little else that would be of higher benefit to your skill than understanding Orwell’s point of view.

He boils it down to six main points that you may or may not have already seen elsewhere:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

I like rule number six, which is just a way to say “don’t go overboard”.

The whole essay is excellent but there are several passages that really struck me.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing, is that it is easy. It is easier–even quicker, once you have the habit–to say IN MY OPINION IT IS A NOT UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSUMPTION THAT than to say I THINK. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences, since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious

He’s right. The first example in that passage flows out very easily. “I think” is just so simple you are inclined to skip over it and use the more complex phrase for it appears to lend credence to what you are writing.

Orwell’s point is that it does not lend credence merely smoke and mirrors.

Next there is this gem:

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

This sums up the whole paper. Essentially write with as simple and clear a prose as possible. This will force you to think about what you write, make your writing easier to understand and it will be harder for you to lie to your reader and yourself.

If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy.

I am very excited to announce Greg O’Byrne as the first contributor, other than yours truly, to write for “The Puget News.” Mr. O’Byrne is an up-and-coming technology blogger, the founder, main contributor, and “head honcho” over at techrivet.com.

There’s more to Greg than just sailing, family, technology MBA’s, web development, and sports; Greg is a bit of a renaissance man and he desires a place to occasionally post his thoughts on matters more literary than technological. I am happy to welcome him to “The Puget News” and provide him with such a forum.

You’ll be seeing his initial post regarding George Orwell and some helpful writing reminders here shortly. Please join me in welcoming Greg O’Byrne to The Pug!