Saturday, February 02, 2002
Another 1,000+ words on Chapter Two today. That's getting montonous, isn't it? But it's a good sort of monotony. Ah, and the uncorrected bound galleys for In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers arrived today as well (I'm debating whether or not to offer one for sale on Ebay to raise a little field paleo' money).
I was speaking, last night, of them what's got it coming, wasn't I? Yes, I thought so. Long ago, back when my career was just starting out, a writer friend advised me, as she had been advised before me, "Never respond to your critics. You'll just end up regretting it later." Though it hardly seemed fair, I took this to heart and, with only a very few and minor exceptions, I've pretty much managed to avoid mouthing off when confronted with the inevitable "slings and arrows" that all writers have to contend with on a daily basis.
But, every now and then, enough is, well, just sort of enough.
One of most irksome of the almost infinite series of unpleasantries that the web has visited upon mankind (and especially authors) has been its creation of a new forum for The Great Opinionated Unwashed. People dedicated to expressing opinions about things of which they are genuinely, if sadly, ignorant. No, that's not a myth. There really are ignorant people in the world, even now, right here in 2002, there are ignorant people. Perhaps it's not politically correct to point them out, but there they are anyway. And, as has always been the case, ignorant people want to be heard. The web has given them the intellectual equivalent of handicapped access. No longer do dictatorial editors and the high costs of printing stand in their way. If they have access to a computer, they have access to a potential audience of billions.
Which, I think, rather levels the playing field.
And if the field is level, then it's fair for me to play, too, right?
Caveat: I am not complaining here about legitimate critics, people who have studied literature and understand its history and complexities, as well as the history and complexities of the languages in question. I don't love critics, but I do tolerate them as a sort of necessary evil, like earthworms and gynecologists. What follows is explicitely a response to something that fails to qualify as criticism. It is best described, I suspect, as "mouthing off."
Yesterday, someone was unkind enough to bring a particulay obtuse review of Threshold to my attention, from a website known simply as "Steph's Book Reviews." I won't quote the entire thing as a) that would be entirely too tiresome and b) it would violate the author's copyright. Instead I will respond briefly to a few specific comments made therein:
"As much as everyone likes to pick on the French for being language-preservationist Nazis, I have to admit that I sometimes see their point. Granted, language is a human tool, designed to adapt and evolve to accommodate new ideas and modes of thinking, and "preservation" can easily become stagnation. But there are some unforgivable linguistic crimes, and the worst of them are crimes of pretension: contorting and wrenching language into shapes it was never meant to take, just because conventions are so...conventional.
"Kiernan commits a new kind of transgression in Threshold, as thankfully unprecedented as it is painful to the ear. Compound words . . ."
Okay. Here we go. Pay attention.
" . . . are normally formed in three stages: first, they appear as two separate words (to morrow), then as two words joined by a hyphen (to-morrow), then, finally, as one single word (tomorrow). Subverting this whole process, Kiernan peppers her narrative with bizarre, train-wreck chains of adjectives, nouns, or whatever comes to hand. Some, like stickyhot, almost make sense, although no additional nuance of meaning is gained by jamming the words together. Others, like saltbland, do not. In Kiernan's world of literary pretension, things can be gooeysharp, pastysharp, or suddensharp; plasticfalse or blindperfect. Occasionally, an extra-strong burst of creative energy generates three-word combos (deadwetdecay being my favorite)."
Now, though I would dearly love to be able to claim credit for "subverting this whole process" into a "new kind of transgression," I'm afraid it's been going on for quite a long, long time now. I might start, for example, with a discussion of ancient Anglo-Saxon kennings, but since that's genuinely a different language, I'll stick to English. In fact, I'll stick to British and American writers from the 20th century. Perhaps Steph has heard of those. I'll begin with James Joyce who, in Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan's Wake (1939) devised such impromptu compounderations as "snotgreen," "scrotumtightening," "paperstuck," "flowerwater," "fourhundredandeighth," "squarepushing," "rustbearded, and so forth (there are hundreds; a compendium is needed). Then, moving along to another favorite author of mine, there are the unfortunate "crimes of pretension" committed by William Faulkner. Let's look, for example, at Light in August (1932). Here, at a casual glance, we find a whole bevy of compounderations (a word of my own invention, so far as I know): "womansmelling," or, more specifically, "pinkwomansmelling," "cinderstrewnpacked," "inwardleaning," "neversunned," and "spectacleblurred." Faulkner, by the way, has had a bit more influence on me than Joyce and I blame him more directly for corrupting my once-perfect English.
So, no, nothing about the creation of compound words in Threshold is new. The author of the "review" is merely ignorant of some of the most important authors who ever wrote in her language.
Christ. This is silly.
An hour ago, I had in mind picking apart this whole ridiculous screed and now, at 1 a.m., I find my determination flagging. In light of the ignorance displayed by the "review's" author, what's the fucking point? As some other ignorant soul once said online, it's a bit "like shooting ducks in a barrel."
Just a couple of more things that I found rather odd:
"Chance is being followed by a spooky, homeless albino named - ahem - Dancy Flammarion."
I assume the strategically-inserted "ahem" is meant to indicate that my choice of names is, in some way, unfortunate. So. I will explain myself. I chose the name Flammarion while reading a biography of Harry Houdini, who was acquainted with a Flammarion. I liked the name, scribbled it down somewhere, knowing that I'd want to use it one day. As for Dancy, that was borrowed from a small town in Greene Co., Al., which I drove through one day in 1998 while doing field work there. Again, it struck me as a marvelous name. And it is, in fact, an actual first name. Ahem, indeed.
" . . . and everybody dies anyway."
No they don't.
" . . . Chance and her boyfriend blow up the brick wall . . ."
No, they do not.
This does get old quickly, doesn't it? And I feel it's unsporting of me (or anyone else) to continue to flog poor Steph for not bothering to be qualified to write the literary equivalent of a book report, much less an actual critique. My free advice to other would-be Opinioneers: if you're going to plague the web with your thoughts, please, please, please, make some attempt to grasp that thing of which you've chosen to speak.
Many of us out here will be very grateful.
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