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  1.  

    Somehow, this 8 year old article has missed our radar, which is a shame because it should be permalinked to the front page.

    Its own tagline: An attack on the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose

    I know it’s been a common question around here about how Twilight can be so popular. As I am a strong fan of free-market principles and hate the tendency of Hollywood et al to disdain the audience (see: any rant by Furious D) I’ve long assumed that Twilight was popular because it was giving the audience something they couldn’t get any where else. Now thanks to this article, I think we can see what it is…

    (warning: the thing is nearly 20 pages long, I’m still working through it)

  2.  

    Nate, that article is wonderful. Unfortunately, we seem to have swung too far back- we’ve ditched the pretentious, incomprehensible crap in favor of the overrated, lowbrow drivel. Grrr. The only happy balance in the middle that comes to mind at the moment is either Harry Potter or The Lovely Bones.

  3.  

    I started laughing way too hard at some of the prose excerpts. (Still on page one)

    One thing I’ve noticed in my own writing is that if I am writing a oneshot that’s mostly exposition, my language gets more flowery and pretentiously repetitive, and I do it even though I KNOW nobody’s going to read all of it and take every bit in. Whereas if I’m wriitng a story in which something actually happens, I don’t do it. I used to mourn this—as in, I thought I wouldn’t be able to recover my style in a story. I thought that was at least on the right path to good writing.

    Now I am just going to cast away every bit of that idea to the wind, the cooling breeze, and let it spread far and wide its scattered and burnt ashes.

    Lol.

    it was giving the audience something they couldn’t get any where else.

    But Twilight is like the worst of everything combined. What is it giving?

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2009
     

    The worst of everything combined. Duh.

    ...there’s a market for that, apparently. :-/

    I do agree that extremes to either side, pretentiousness or ‘lowbrow drivel’ are bad; but a happy medium is, paradoxically, both rare and well done. </steak metaphor>

  4.  

    Lol, Taku.

    Examples of low-brow drivel:...?

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2010
     

    low-brow drivel: Twilight, Eragon, DaVinci Code, etc.

    pretentiousness: any creative-nonfiction biography written in the last 5 years.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2010
     

    I haven’t quite finished the article yet, as it’s kind of long, but so far I have one word:

    Brilliant!

    I can’t believe we haven’t found and embraced the author of this article yet. He deserves a party.

  5.  

    @Taku: Oh, we’re going that lowbrow, are we?

    @ Danielle: No, he deserves an II sainthood. Only, he doesn’t want his picture anywhere, so we’ll have to venerate a blank space.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 11th 2010
     

    @ Danielle: No, he deserves an II sainthood. Only, he doesn’t want his picture anywhere, so we’ll have to venerate a blank space.

    For sure. We could always just get a pedestal and put nothing on it….

    I finished the section on “Masculine Prose”—the one where he officially becomes my hero by pointing out everything wrong with Cormac McCarthy’s writing—and it reminded me of a book “recipe” from a writing parody book called Fondling Your Muse. I’ll reprint it for those who want to mock Cormac McCarthy with me people who want to create a piece of lasting American literature.

    Contemporary American Literature Flambe

    1 generally unpalatable main character
    7 reams self-importance
    12 pounds lint from own navel
    prose, to taste
    propane torch

    Mix lint with self-importance and infuse into main character. Use propane torch to overheat prose. Served in smaller and smaller quantities as the years go by.

  6.  
    I had to read "All the Pretty Horses" (from here referred to as APH) for AP English--it is very rare that I hate a book. Even if I don't really like a book (like "Great Expectations") I can at least see what others would get out of it. With APH. the characters were as flat as aluminum foil, the writing was pretentious, and the dialogue was stilted--it's like the man has a wooden ear!!! Also, a pet peeve of mine is when authors have such an inflated sense of self-importance that they believe they are above quotation marks--why would you ever think not putting quotation marks around your dialogue is OK? It's confusing, and downright ANNOYING!!!!!! Ugh, terrible book!!!

    Although I have to admit that I have read some excepts from "The Shipping News," and it was kinda cool. I don't know if I could stand the entire novel, though.

    Lastly, I think it's unfair to say that all books that have gotten awards in the last couple years were undeserved. Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" and "Interpreter of Maladies" were both excellent, and definitely deserved the Pulitzers that they won.
    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 11th 2010
     

    I had to read “All the Pretty Horses” (from here referred to as APH) for AP English—it is very rare that I hate a book. Even if I don’t really like a book (like “Great Expectations”) I can at least see what others would get out of it. With APH. the characters were as flat as aluminum foil, the writing was pretentious, and the dialogue was stilted—it’s like the man has a wooden ear!!! Also, a pet peeve of mine is when authors have such an inflated sense of self-importance that they believe they are above quotation marks—why would you ever think not putting quotation marks around your dialogue is OK? It’s confusing, and downright ANNOYING!!!!!! Ugh, terrible book!!!

    That’s what bugged me the most about APH: McCarthy’s pretentious belief that Serious Writers need not adhere to the rules of grammar. It’s like saying Serious Scientists need not adhere to the laws of physics.

    That, and the way everything in APH is recorded in a Tragic Way. The hangover. Jimmy Blevins or whatever his name is. Alexandra. The horses. It’s all part of a Great Tragic Story written by a Serious Writer, and you can almost see McCarthy smiling smugly in the background, telling all the Lesser Readers that they’re unworthy of his genius.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeJan 11th 2010
     

    It’s like saying Serious Scientists need not adhere to the laws of physics.

    XD

    I do believe that analogy nets you an internet.

  7.  
    Oh, and McCarthy''s syntax is terrible! As in, for most of the book, he uses "manly" sentences, which are basically subject, verb, object...AAAANNNDD THEN, he bursts into polysyndeton and cumulative sentences that take up a paragraph and are impossible to follow--uph, soooo annoying!!!

    Although I will admit, the Brontes and Tolkien had terrible syntax too. I often felt like Emily Bronte was mortally afraid of periods, and had a semi-colon fetish. But at least they had a worthwhile story to tell, and did the best they could. McCarthy stuffs the dreariest adventure with so-called "meaning," uncapitalizes words that should be capitalized (English becomes english, and he always forgets his apostrophes!!!!!), and calls it a day.
  8.  

    Also, a pet peeve of mine is when authors have such an inflated sense of self-importance that they believe they are above quotation marks—why would you ever think not putting quotation marks around your dialogue is OK? It’s confusing, and downright ANNOYING!!!!!! Ugh, terrible book!!!

    I reckon only Meg Rossoff in How I Live Now can get away with it. Especially since it’s part of a specific character’s voice, and she doesn’t do it in any of her other books.

    But also, words are meant to be experimented with. If you’re just doing it for the sake of pretentiousness, it’s a different thing than actually doing it because you are experimenting with it and want to see what happens. Like a Silly Scientist. You know, like the ones who invented Silly Putty and slinkies.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeJan 11th 2010
     

    Awww, I like Tolkien’s syntax. It feels nice.

    •  
      CommentAuthorRed Sky
    • CommentTimeJan 11th 2010
     

    Some writers do very well without quotation marks. I remember being bothered by it with McCarthy, because none of his characters show enough personality to really make a difference in their dialogue, but I could definitely read Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes without any problem, and I love Junot Diaz’s work, which ignores quotes as well.

    I don’t think skewing grammar and punctuation is necessarily a bad thing, but there’s no point in doing it just for the sake of distinguishing yourself from others. That’s like going into the lab and injecting random chemicals into the mice without a sense of purpose.

  9.  

    I don’t think skewing grammar and punctuation is necessarily a bad thing, but there’s no point in doing it just for the sake of distinguishing yourself from others. That’s like going into the lab and injecting random chemicals into the mice without a sense of purpose.

    ExACTly!

  10.  

    I think McCarthy’s lack of grammar worked for The Road, the bare minimum prose mirrored the bare world.

    However, I had no idea he always wrote that way. I assumed it was just something he did for that book. Ew.

  11.  

    Me: Now thanks to this article, I think we can see what it is…
    Steph: But Twilight is like the worst of everything combined. What is it giving?

    I could be wrong, having never read them all the way through, but I thought of any word you could use to describe Twilight, pretentious wasn’t one of them. Indeed, the clips I’ve seen paint it as fairly “genre” (to quote the article).

    Although Hogwarts professor has noted that there might be yet more that Twilight is appealing to.

    low-brow drivel: Twilight, Eragon, DaVinci Code, etc
    pretentiousness: any creative-nonfiction biography written in the last 5 years.

    Funny, I could have sworn that Eragon was low brow drivel trying to be pretentious. Of course since that seemed to describe a lot of the books in the article, it probably fits them too. (maybe for april 1 I’ll write an article praising Eragon as the literature hallmark of our age)

    I’ll reprint it for those who want to mock Cormac McCarthy with me people who want to create a piece of lasting American literature.

    Oh me me! I’ve never read him but watched No Country for Old Men and was angry at the way the movie just cheated out at the end. Then I learned that that seems pretty faithful to the book. (and of course I wasn’t happy with the moral: “don’t help anyone ever”)

    and had a semi-colon fetish.

    My editors will tell you I have a comma phobia. (“commas killed my parents man”)

  12.  

    I think McCarthy’s lack of grammar worked for The Road, the bare minimum prose mirrored the bare world.

    If I, an unpublished author, had submitted The Road to a publisher, they would have rejected it and told me that I needed to learn the basic rules of grammar. Why should they make exceptions for McCarthy?

  13.  
    OK, OK, I concede--I actually recently read a very good book where the author didn't use quotation marks. However, with McCarthy, I sometimes felt like he was just being plain lazy about his grammar...you have to admit that there is no reason to leave out the apostrophes in contractions!

    And I agree with Zombie--I feel like many authors get away with murder due to the simple fact that they are authors. Many authors start out wonderful, and slowly get worse because, as they are established, they can get almost anything published.

    And @ WiseWillow--I love Tolkien's writing style too! It always reminds me of reading in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate (even in the middle of summer...) I always read it during exams/other stressful times in my life, because there's something so comforting about it...
    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    If I, an unpublished author, had submitted The Road to a publisher, they would have rejected it and told me that I needed to learn the basic rules of grammar. Why should they make exceptions for McCarthy?

    Because he’s a Serious Writer and his Books of Literature are so much more distinguished than anything your puny, uncultured mind can comprehend.

    Sometimes a lack of quotation marks can add to a work. I haven’t read The Road because after APH I swore to never read another McCarthy book, but in APH I felt like it was just McCarthy being smug. Like he was saying “Look at what I can do. And if you don’t like it, well, that obviously shows you have no taste because I have all the New York Times Book Review critics in my pocket and they won’t dare defy me because then I’ll make them feel stupid.” Literary world’s equivalent of a bully, much?

  14.  

    If I, an unpublished author, had submitted The Road to a publisher, they would have rejected it and told me that I needed to learn the basic rules of grammar. Why should they make exceptions for McCarthy?

    Because He is Above Reproach and we must Worship His Gramarless Muscular Prose.

    It drove me nuts at first, but there were only two characters, so I could stick it out.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    Because He is Above Reproach and we must Worship His Gramarless Muscular Prose.

    To a certain extent, yes. Note, this opinion is entirely unfounded as I haven’t read The Road or anything by McCarthy, but once an author has established themselves, and if the publishing company are willing to support the author, why shouldn’t they be able to experiment?

    Good grammar =/= good writing. If he failed to pull it off in The Road, oh well, try again. Writing would stay the same unless people didn’t bother to experiment.

    (Isn’t that why we get peed off at CP? because he didn’t try for anything new/original?)

  15.  

    (Isn’t that why we get peed off at CP? because he didn’t try for anything new/original?)

    Well, yes Jeni but without the basic rules communication is impossible. Why doesn’t CP or McCarthy just invent a whole new alphabet or new word spellings and write a book with those?

    Because such a book would be unreadable (literally). Writing and language is fundamentally an agreed upon code employed by a society. Violate too many rules and it all becomes gibberish. It’s one thing if you’re bending existing rules to enhance your meaning (ex – in a review I read that Tom Wolfe employed colons ‘:::::’ to represent a train of thought) but another to just violate rules left and right in order to make your writing more obscure and obtuse to give the illusion of depth

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010 edited
     

    Well, yes Jeni but without the basic rules communication is impossible.

    As I said, I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how readable it is. But I still think that doesn’t necessarily equate a bad thing. From the impression above I simply got the message the grammar was bad, so the book was bad.

    Errr, I studied a book back in high school, lemme have a look for it.

    Right! Daz 4 Zoe by Robert Swindells, a Jolly Well Regarded British Writer. Part of the novel is written in a similar way to modern chatspeak, i.e. phonetic, bad grammar, etc.

    So yes, traditionally unreadable. But, because of the nature of the novel (it’s written as some letters from the lower class and thus low quality educated, Daz) it is more immersive. Swindells experimented with different ways of writing to impact upon the reader in a different way to the traditional storytelling.

    I don’t know if McCarthy had a method in his madness, but I just wanted to pull out stops and suggest that being a blind grammar nazi isn’t necessarily a positive attribute.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    I don’t know if McCarthy had a method in his madness, but I just wanted to pull out stops and suggest that being a blind grammar nazi isn’t necessarily a positive attribute.

    The issue we all have is that there is no method to the madness. Not that there’s madness in the first place.

    The Color Purple, which I surprisingly enjoyed, has terrible grammar and syntax for much of it, but seeing as how it is told as written by a barely literate black woman in the early 1900s, it makes sense, and is still quite easily readable. In contrast, the letters from the narrator’s sister (who is highly intelligent and well-educated) follow established spelling and grammatical conventions.

    Angela’s Ashes is another good book that, though it does not follow all the rules, was very readable. I actually think it works better on a whole because it broke those rules.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    Precisely?

  16.  

    Well… yeah, I mean there is a lot of room between a grammar nazi and anarchy.

    Though I believe it was Lewis who pointed out that first you must master the rules before you can begin to break them. I’m wonder how many authors have really “mastered” them to begin with.

    Also, because it should have been mentioned already.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    I’m wonder how many authors have really “mastered” them to begin with.

    Heh, and I wonder how many modern authors equate success with being a master. ;)

  17.  

    Jeni – giving voice to my subtext. ;-)

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    Jeni – giving voice to my subtext. ;-)

    Of course you meant that. Winkwink.

    Don’t worry, I won’t reveal it to the masses.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    Was rereading the article when I came across this gem of incoherency that perfectly illustrates why McCarthy should be given a solid thwack on the head:

    While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who’s will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who’s will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations of who’s will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned. (All the Pretty Horses, 1992)

    This is about a horse taking a shit. WTH?

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2010
     

    ...

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    This is about a horse taking a shit. WTH?

    The worst part of it is, I didn’t even know it was about a horse taking a dump until you mentioned it. Nice job, McCarthy.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    and the bowels shifted

    That is the only hint. And with all the other crap in this paragraph, for all we (by we, I mean sane people) know the horse has nausea.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    That is the only hint. And with all the other crap in this paragraph, for all we (by we, I mean sane people) know the horse has nausea.

    It could also be a psychopathic fire-breathing horse with telekinesis, for all we know. Or not even a horse at all. Nobody knows…..

  18.  

    I read it twice and I still don’t understand it…

    Why waste so much time and words on a horse pooing? Who cares about pooing horses?

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    Why waste so much time and words on a horse pooing? Who cares about pooing horses?

    Nobody but McCarthy. The fact that you don’t care about pooing horses just proves you’ll never be a writer of his caliber, so you may as well give up now.

  19.  

    Nobody but McCarthy. The fact that you don’t care about pooing horses just proves you’ll never be a writer of his caliber, so you may as well give up now.

    Dayum. Well, I just hope I can be as good as Gloatia. She’s my hero…

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    I just hope I can be as good as Gloatia. She’s my hero…

    Who?

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    Who?

    Tell me, are you familiar with the wonderful Maradonia and the Seven Bridges?

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010 edited
     

    Tell me, are you familiar with the wonderful Maradonia and the Seven Bridges?

    Oh! The eight hundred pages of toilet paper literary masterpiece that gives hope to all aspiring novelists? Yes, I’m familiar with that pile of crap masterpiece.

    • CommentAuthorNo One
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2010
     

    I didn’t even noticed that it was about a bowel. Was that seriously one sentence? What the hell?

  20.  

    Guys, it’s not about a horse pooping. It’s about a horse. “Bowel” doesn’t necessarily mean “rectum”.

    It’s still incredibly retarded, though.

  21.  

    “Bowel” doesn’t necessarily mean “rectum”.

    How many other bowels does a horse have?

  22.  

    It’s a general term for the digestive tract.

    Really, people, would you expect a horse to stomp and shake its head and foam at the mouth while taking a dump? It also appears that its eyes are bloodshot.

    THE HORSE IS HIGH.

  23.  

    It’s a general term for the digestive tract.
    Really, people, would you expect a horse to stomp and shake its head and foam at the mouth while taking a dump? It also appears that its eyes are bloodshot.
    THE HORSE IS HIGH.

    If the horse has constipation…. yeah.

    Though it’s possible the beast is high. It’s also possible it’s over eaten. We once had our horses get into the feed and we had to get them treated for… colic I think. (though there could be so many more) Remember that horses can’t throw up so it’s possible it could be having all sorts of problems.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2010
     

    ...You guys are weird.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2010
     

    THE HORSE IS HIGH.

    Like Cormac McCarthy had to be to think this passage is fine literature?

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2010
     

    Cormac McCarthy should get down off his high horse.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2010
     

    Cormac McCarthy should get down off his high horse.

    Double win!

    Win #1: Totally true. Cormac McCarthy is an arrogant little buttwipe.
    Win #2: YAY PUNS!!!!

  24.  
    Actually, I don't know if anybody has read "The Hours," but I thought it was imitative literature at it's worst. I'm mentioning it because Cunningham tries to be lyrical and poetical like McCarthy, and like McCarthy, he utterly fails. Has anybody read it? What do you think?
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  27.  
    Nate, do you really have editors? And agents? REALLY?
    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeJan 16th 2010
     

    I’m sure he does have editors. The agents, I’m not sure about. And I think it would be safer if we didn’t know.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeJan 16th 2010
     

    He just calls them his Angels.

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