Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

BSS #84: Francine Prose

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Author: Francine Prose

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Introspective about Xmas realities.

Subjects Discussed: Reading like a writer vs. reading as an escapist, Car Talk, reading People as preparation for reading Chekhov, The Illustrated Elements of Style, diagramming sentences, making grammar fun, academia and the poststructuralist vogue, how theory influences writing, concise writing vs. prodigious writing, Infinite Jest, one-line paragraphs and David Markson, Raymond Carver, Ben Marcus and “experimental” writing, Only Revolutions, literary absolutes, Jackson Pollock, the “show don’t tell” rule, Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, the Nabokov estate, working on a book too long, the “death” of book culture, puzzle novels, Pynchon, the 2006 National Book Award nominees, not finishing books, William Gaddis, James M. Cain’s Past All Dishonor, James Wood, naturalist dialogue reflecting a historical time, transcribing speech, chapters and blocks of text, pointless detail, and Nicholson Baker.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Prose: People keep telling me that all those vogues for structuralism and poststructuralism and deconstructionism are passing, which couldn’t make me happier. And you know I think that those things have had a very bad effect not only on reading, but on writing. I mean, that is because they encourage people to use jargon. They encourage students to use jargon. I mean, when I teach, one of the assignments that I give is to ask my students to find a passage of jargon — academic jargon, literary jargon, art history jargon — and then translate it back into English, and bring both passages into class. And often the jargon they come up with is theory jargon. Literary theory jargon. So nothing can make me happer than to hear that that’s on its way out.

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by Edward Champion

Goncourt A-Go Go

A Different Stripe points to this Adam Kirsch article about the Goncourt Brothers, who were the naturalist forerunner of today’s gossip columnists. I don’t entirely buy the NYRB‘s claim that the Goncourt Brothers’ journal (recently republished) represents “a masterpiece of French literature written during the era,” particularly since this comes from the people who published the book. But an excerpt can be found here and this 1937 Time article suggests that the journals, among the few Goncourt texts to make it into the 20th century, are a “racy record” and the Goncourts considered their friend Flaubert to be “a great water of time, forgetting himself in things he picks up to read, and constantly running away from the book he is writing.” Perhaps the Goncourts were among the first litbloggers.