Speaking of books, I started reading a novel called Middle Age: A Romance a couple of days ago. This novel falls squarely (or maybe rectangularly?) into that category of books on my shelves that are destined for one reading and then a trip to Half Price Books. It's by Joyce Carol Oates, who seems to be one of those rare authors who is both prolific and talented. I have never read anything she has written until now, which seems sort of odd, because I am such a book nerd and she is so well thought of.
Some writers are prolific and untalented (Dean Koontz, John Grisham); some writers are prolific and marginally talented (Anne Rice*); some writers are extremely talented but not especially prolific (Jonathan Franzen, Bret Easton Ellis, Tom Perrotta); some writers had talent once but then crossed the line into prostitution and lost their street cred, at least with me (Thomas Harris, Michael Crichton**); and some writers, though they are rare, are both prolific and extremely talented (Stephen King). There are also writers who have written an amazing first novel and clearly need to write more, soon (Elizabeth Kostova and Rex Pickett).
But back to Joyce Carol Oates. Her name first came up recently when I picked up an issue of Salmagundi in large part because its cover trumpeted a new novella by Joyce Carol Oates called "Papa At Ketchum, 1961." This caught my eye a little bit because of her name, but mostly because of the title. (The issue also contains an essay called "Marilynne Robinson & Religion," which sounded vaguely interesting. Marilynne Robinson wrote a book called Gilead, which everybody and their mother seems to think is the greatest thing since communion wafers, but which I thought was ponderous and boring. But then, not being especially open to whatever religious message it might have been trying to send, it's possible that I was not the target market.)
Oates came up again the other night when I found myself needing to start a new book, being more than halfway done with the two books I was already reading, and wanting to start something that I thought had a pretty good shot at being a book that I would read once and then want to get rid of. I'm about fifty pages into it, and I have to admit that it's pretty good, although she throws around sentence fragments like she's getting paid for them. I took a course called College Research And Review my senior year in high school (it was commonly called College Comp), and the teacher, Mr. Neal Shortz, assigned weekly compositions based on reading done in class on Monday. You got an automatic 65 (a bad grade) if your composition contained even one little run-on sentecne OR sentence fragment. I learned a lot about writing from that guy, but he never mentioned that you could pepper a novel with fragments and still be thought of as probably the most important woman of letters ever to emerge from America.
There's not really a point to this. Sometimes these things have no point. It's part of their charm. I'm outta here. (Actually, the point is sometimes to make someone chuckle. I hope that I have succeeded.)
* What I have read of The Vampire Chronicles is really good, and I have heard good things about the Mayfair witches books, though I have not read any of them. But Servant Of The Bones sucked, as did what I was able to get through of Pandora. Oddly, though, Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt was pretty good. Actually, it was really good.
** This is somewhat disingenuous. I actually liked two Thomas Harris novels, although they were essentially the same story told with different characters (Red Dragon and The Silence Of The Lambs). I have only liked one Michael Crichton novel (Jurassic Park), hated one (Sphere), and thought another was an okay read but an act of prostitution (The Lost World.)
1 comment:
It is nice to know other English nerds. I was taught by my comp teacher that sentence fragments could be used stylistically and we were to mark them in order to keep from recieving an automatic 'F' for an unmarked fragment.
It was a good system, but in my writing endeavors, I have found that the only consistently effective use for a sentence fragment is in dialog. Dialog is often fragemented and makes a good place for a stylistic sentence fragment. Any other consistent use of this grammar flaw seems to be overdramatic and ineffective.
My grandmother used to tell me that if I had to use swear words to get my message accross then it meant I did not have proper control of the english language. I would argue similarly that if you need to use a fragment to get the point accross, then there is some other flaw in your command of the language that requires you to use the fragment as a crutch. Considering, of course, that fragments are wrong.
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