“If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead.”
—Adam Haslett, reviewing How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, by Stanley Fish
Haslett clearly hasn’t encountered Ron Silliman and so hasn’t factored the New Sentence into his wonderful analogy. Were we to update it (strange to be updating a review posted just yesterday), we’d have to say that the second act would conclude with the young Ron walking into a saloon, finding a florid John O’Hara slumped at the bar in a haze of nostalgia for Lawrence Welk, and slitting his throat with a poorly-honed linguistic theory.
Lyle ..<br /><br />you<br />"missed the point"<br /><br />and I betchuh those rude DOLTS at that table<br />never ever have "gotten" ANY point!<br /><br />all of the bombs, the napalm, the germs dropped on the dirt-floor huts and make-shift tables in those villages in The Nam, or in … London or Takeet ..<br /><br />well<br /><br />it really WASN'T about that Rage-ing
And Processed Pasteurized Cheese Food means: it isn't food.<br /><br />That's a freaky-spooky story about the guy showing up at a reading with a knife.<br /><br />At an open mike I used to frequent (late 1990's) at a bar in downtown Minneapolis, one evening one of the readers (a guy who showed up regularly each week) apparently became irritated with a couple of people sitting at a
hell<br /><br />nothing tastes the same!<br /><br />even eating artificial poontang ain't got that real flavor anymore…<br /> as I re:call <br /><br />-guess whom.
I can't remember whose lines these are, Ed, but:<br /><br />Real Butter Flavor<br />means<br />there's no<br />real butter in it
bottom line?<br /><br />it s all about daily have-ing<br />a decent bowel movement<br /><br />without tht jug of Unsweetened Prune Juice!<br /><br />hell<br /><br />just try to find<br /><br />Unsweetened Prune Juice<br /> anywhere!<br /><br />what ypu'll find is <br />real prune juice way down on the list..<br /><br />after water, sugar, apple
Some learn How To Join A Club at approximately age 2. Silliman and Bernstein must have. The trick is how to resign from the Club. The best of the Surrealists resigned, as did the best Objectivists; the best New York poets resigned as soon as the Club's name was announced. It's the ones who hang on, polishing their secret handshakes and singing the old Club songs, that end up so sad. Here
I 2oo am at-this-moment into that Twain Auto..<br />..and some other things..<br />am<br />just past Grant's reply to that critic/publisher..<br /><br />and into his (Twain's) London cabbie "stuff"<br /><br />I think that one should only go to school <br />to learn "stuff" that one cannot learn on their own…<br /><br />like<br />how to change a washer in a toilet<
I'm still reading Twain's Autobiography—slowly, as the long, beautiful sentences require—but plan to re-read Huck after I'm done. If we included humaneness as a crucial aspect of judging literature, Huck would be at the top of the American list. It may be, anyway. And certain darlings of the Academy wouldn't be on the list at all….
"The rich are different from you and me."<br /><br />"Yeah, they've got more theories."<br /><br />*<br /><br />Haven't ever read much of Henry James. However–<br /><br />The past couple of weeks I've been reading (re-reading) <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, in part in the aftermath of the recent stir about the "revised" edition that some professor out there
maybe it is just<br />that 'thinking' makes 'it' so?<br />or<br />as Breton said/wrote:<br /><br />"the imaginary is what tends to become real" ?<br /><br />one learns "the Rules"<br />and then if one ONE can<br />dumbs them overboard…<br /><br />sometimes<br />it s not so easy<br />being yourself/myself<br /><br />(I'm doing my dambdead to re:turn to
I've got Fish's book on order, too, Conrad. Though well-formed sentences are abundant; we just think, or have been taught to think, that every jump-cut takes us closer to the Real. But maybe it's the flow that matters. Not that all flows are smooth and Jamesian. One of my favorites is Wright Morris, now all but forgotten, though he could write a plain but supple sentence that might
I'm 'inhaling'<br />Mallarme in Prose<br /><br />so to add a "third" YEAH!<br /><br />not only the razor but the honing strop (strap) to<br />sharpen every syllable…<br /><br />ever hear that sound that "ping" when the razor<br />met the strap?<br /><br />same "sound" a proper word makes in a proper sentence.. a ring-of-truth;
I'm going to second Conrad here in that I've just read 4 short stories by Henry James from his middle period and the well-formed sentence just raises you right up.
I love Stanley Fish, especially his "Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities".<br /><br />I'm reading Wilkie Collins at the moment, and my god! what a refreshingly lovely change from the butchered deviscerated prose out there.I'm not saying let's all write like Victorians: but how about a little respect for a well-formed sentence.<br /><br />