Firstly, I’d like to apologize for my inactivity of late. I just underwent a move from Traverse City to Ann Arbor, and then a switch of apartments with my girlfriend. It’s been a very hectic four weeks, but — other than the fact that I’m still unemployed — I’ve mostly settled down now.
Recently I realized that it would be very difficult to write consistently on here about fiction and philosophy. Not only would it be exhausting, but I’m just not sure that I have those kind of resources. For this post, I turn to a sort of nonfiction reference book. I caught wind of Sin & Syntax by Constance Hale on a trip to the MSU Computer Store circa Spring 2007. A girl working at the counter set the book down to assist me, and I couldn’t help reading the cover when she went into the store room.
I found the book used on Amazon and started reading. For someone who hasn’t had an English class since 2001, this was a hefty undertaking. This feeling was increased since, on more than one occasion, I disagreed with her suggestions. For example, she seems to prefer third-person writing to first-person without question.
“In today’s culture of confession, many writers prefer the first-person point of view. Unabashed subjectivity may be fine for ever-popular memoirs on incest and inside-the-Beltway intrigue, but the third-person point of view remains the standard in news reporting and writing that aims to inform, because it keeps the focus off the writer and on the subject” (p. 36).
She’s correct about focus, but some of the greatest literature — especially in American history — has been told from the first-person view: The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, The Sun Also Rises, etc. Plus (as if I haven’t already made this clear), the authors that got me to write were all using first-person: Kerouac, Thompson, Miller. I would even go so far as to suggest that third-person writing is a way of hiding behind other characters, instead of facing the story head-on. Or maybe I just can’t understand the concept of omnipotence, or pretending to know what dozens of characters are thinking and feeling, let alone saying out loud.
Hale progresses through three parts: Words, Sentences, and Music. Each subsection (i.e. – Nouns) features both Cardinal Sins (what to avoid at all costs) and Carnal Pleasures (what to work hard at developing). One of her Cardinal Sins is the way that journalism copy editors remove interjections (short words or phrases intended for strong effect more than meaning), leaving the writing stale and sterilized.
How she omits Kerouac — one of the most poetic prose writers of all time, who infused jazz into his words in amazing ways — from the Music section is beyond me. But regardless of my opposition, the book is still worth reading.
Similar Posts:
- The Sin of Lifelessness (November 25, 2008)
- To Write for the Sake of Writing (May 3, 2009)
- Welcome! (May 28, 2008)
- Henry Miller: Prototype For a New Kind of Protest (March 11, 2009)
- We Must Give the Void Its Colors (September 3, 2009)
