Poor, Pathetic Would-Be Writers


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"In this world if you do not say a thing in an irritating way you may just as well not say it at all, because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them."

- George Bernard Shaw

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"In this world if you do not say a thing in an irritating way you may just as well not say it at all, because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them."

- George Bernard Shaw

Yup, Shaw knew how to say irritating things....

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Ghs

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Shaw was one hell of a writer.

And one hell of a snob.

Thank God he never got any real power. Otherwise he would have turned out to be one hell of a nasty piece of work.

As it is, he's just a run-of-the-mill nasty piece of work who wrote well--especially plays. I enjoy them the most when I forget he wrote them...

(I have fond memories of Major Barbara from my high school days.)

Michael

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Oh my, a literary thread that I can actually get into.

When I was in grade school, in NJ, I got one of E.B's progeny transferred into my school system. Her name was Marion White (not sure about sp on first). Anyway, she was obviously used to better, and mostly the memory I have of her was that she was dressed severe; at least in that period, but the white strap sandals. She used to use these to kick boys in the knees during recess, and it was rather effective. The funny part about it was that, back in that time, there was a tradition (which I dearly love) involving reading novels over time to kids after lunch. I think that is probably the best thing I have ever seen in the history of education, though I am not sure who started it.

And we went through EB. I was raised being read to, and, upon contemplation, maybe that had the good effect upon me. Awareness of literature, we used to call it.

I can say with conviction that I have not seen a recent modern other (meaning post 90's) that is worth shit; but that is just me. The rest appear to be aiport novels.

I mean, I have standards, man. Even easy stuff like Thomas Disch's "Camp Concentration."

I was up teaching guitar at 8 am, and you know, I was sitting there with the student's father, talking..he says "I have a friend that is a pretty good psychologist, and I was asking; he said "these kids are overstimulated."

Well, yeah. But, it's always' been portrayed such.

rde

That was a freewrite.

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And, just for the record. . .

I don't get the jokes about "how E.B. would've wrote it," or whatever.

The fact remains that that thing was a great, slim style-manual. I do believe that the people who attack it are, well, attacking their own deficiencies in writing, maybe. Talk about a "smuggled concept;" well, no one has ever said (outside of certain professors) nor been able to enforce E.B's style manual. It is simply a nice guide, and I don't see why it cannot continue to be used as such. Actually, despite the debate, it will, as it has been.

It is obnoxious to attack something on some petty style standpoint, or whatever-the-fuck. Especially those that have helped people.

No, I don't how E.B. encouraged me, but I sure as shit learned from him.

It has been so long a certain way..dogs showing each other's dicks. "Eew, I finnesed this metaphor..."

Sickening, but, I always see better writing. Even three-worders.

Even this stuff (out of context, done this here before): http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm

rde

What, I gotta do fuckin' HAIKUS now?

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It is obnoxious to attack something on some petty style standpoint, or whatever-the-fuck.

I agree entirely - especially with the part about "whatever-the-fuck." Admirably exact, that phrase. "Precisely written," as someone around here has been known to say. I mean who but some miscreant or base reprobate would do something like that? "Attack something on some petty style standpoint, or whatever-the-fuck," I mean. Maybe some range-of-the-moment whim-worshipper or psychoepistemological criminal would do something like that. All I can say is, it's almost unimaginably evil.

JR

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[...] Thank God [shaw] never got any real power. Otherwise he would have turned out to be one hell of a nasty piece of work.

Who says he didn't get such power? Shaw gave personal support, unearned cachet, and considerable money to the Fabian Society, run by his friends Beatrice and Sidney Webb, which was the single most successful advocacy group for socialism in Britain.

So in the fervent intellectual support behind the scenes of repressive power, if not in the direct wielding of it, Shaw has a lot of atrocities to answer for.

Which creates nothing to detract from the value of his plays, just as Rand's support of the socialist theocrats of the State of Israel created nothing to detract from the value of her novels and essays.

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> It is obnoxious to attack something on some petty style standpoint

I think that was me. I had the audacity to question Jeff's writing on another thread.

>who but some miscreant or base reprobate would do something like that?

I'm going to have to adopt one of these two as my permanent nickname from now on. Or you can just call me Doctor Evil.

,,,,,,

As for "Major Barbara", we just read it in my "Great Books Discussion Group" here in Florida. Full of great lines, clever dialogue. But logically discombobulated* enough to drive a truck through. The shift in character traits of the main character didn't make a lot of sense. "Saint Joan" is the only other work of Shaw that I recall reading. (I recall looking at "Pygmalion" in parts and liking some of the dialogue and development after having seen two film versions. And suspecting that would be a good one. It's upcoming in another GBDG I belong to...I'm in three of them.)

Anyone have any recommendations, or have read enough of GBS to name what are his best works? (Caveat: You can't just be channeling critical consensus; you actually have to have read a lot more Shaw than I have to make any claims about this.)

,,,,,,

*"logically discombobulated is a (precisely written) technical literary term, as Jeff Riggenbach can attest.

Edited by Philip Coates
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What I remember about Major Barbara was my awakening to the need for the manufacturers of bombs and similar heavy weaponry to have some kind of morality. Until that point, I had not even thought about those who produce this stuff, nor about how they come to moral grips with how it is consumed.

I remember something in the play about the Salvation Army. It's not great, but for the builders of instruments for killing massive amounts of human beings, it's at least a start at having a soul.

It's odd that Shaw basically had the same soul as the ones his protagonist thought needed saving.

Michael

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> my awakening to the need for the manufacturers of bombs and similar heavy weaponry to have some kind of morality

That may have been true - it filled a need for you personally or gave you an insight subjectively. What I remember was how illogical the long-winded explanations of the paterfamilias, the arms dealer of his 'ethics' of selling to terrorists and the like was. And how illogical it was for his children to finally break down and swallow it whole.

Shaw didn't even try to make their conversion plausible. Ridiculous! Glib, entertaining, but absurd. To such an extent that it mars the play for the attentive watcher or reader.

Edited by Philip Coates
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I had the audacity to question Jeff's writing on another thread.

And yet I, in my waywardness and willfulness, have obstinately refused to write like E. B. White! Can you imagine the enormity of it? I mean, here's a knowledgeable and well-meaning writer and editor of distinction - a man whose every post and whose hundreds of publications make abundantly clear how much more he knows about effective writing than I do - and I blow him off! I act as though his advice to write like E. B. White had never been offered! I can only shudder at the mere thought of such an unconscionable farrago of evil. The attentive watcher or reader can only gasp in astonishment.

JR

Edited by Jeff Riggenbach
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I had the audacity to question Jeff's writing on another thread.

And yet I, in my waywardness and willfulness, have obstinately refused to write like E. B. White! Can you imagine the enormity of it? I mean, here's a knowledgeable and well-meaning writer and editor of distinction - a man whose every post and whose hundreds of publications make abundantly clear how much more he knows about effective writing than I do - and I blow him off! I act as though his advice to write like E. B. White had never been offered! I can only shudder at the mere thought of such an unconscionable farrago of evil. The attentive watcher or reader can only gasp in astonishment.

JR

Take it to the next level, Jeff. Read How to Read a Book. It is my intention to write a book entitled How to Read How to Read a Book. You can then write the next volume in the series. And be sure to write it like E.B. White would write it if E.B. White would write like E.B. White! BTW, how would he write? Please provide examples of E.B. White writing like E.B. White and E.B. White not writing like E.B. White. TIA.

--Brant

I love to say nothing and say it a lot

_______

Edit: Great news! I just went over to a bunch of books piled up on the floor and found The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It still has the $1.00 Grocery price tag from my Safeway store. Virginal!, albeit the 3rd edition. (Can anybody tell me what was wrong with the first two editions?)

_______

did Mark Twain write like E.B. White?

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Take it to the next level, Jeff. Read How to Read a Book. It is my intention to write a book entitled How to Read How to Read a Book. You can then write the next volume in the series. And be sure to write it like E.B. White would write it if E.B. White would write like E.B. White! BTW, how would he write? Please provide examples of E.B. White writing like E.B. White and E.B. White not writing like E.B. White. TIA.

A reviewer of How to Read a Book, after noting how tedious the book is, suggested that Adler should have written How to Read a Page instead.

Ghs

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Take it to the next level, Jeff. Read How to Read a Book. It is my intention to write a book entitled How to Read How to Read a Book. You can then write the next volume in the series. And be sure to write it like E.B. White would write it if E.B. White would write like E.B. White! BTW, how would he write? Please provide examples of E.B. White writing like E.B. White and E.B. White not writing like E.B. White. TIA.

A reviewer of How to Read a Book, after noting how tedious the book is, suggested that Adler should have written How to Read a Page instead.

Ghs

How to Read a Page was written, as a response to How to Read a Book, by the British literary critic I. A. Richards, in 1942.

JR

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> a man whose every post and whose hundreds of publications make abundantly clear how much more he knows about effective writing than I [Phil] do...

What's the weather like in your imaginary universe, Jeff?

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Take it to the next level, Jeff. Read How to Read a Book. It is my intention to write a book entitled How to Read How to Read a Book. You can then write the next volume in the series. And be sure to write it like E.B. White would write it if E.B. White would write like E.B. White! BTW, how would he write? Please provide examples of E.B. White writing like E.B. White and E.B. White not writing like E.B. White. TIA.

A reviewer of How to Read a Book, after noting how tedious the book is, suggested that Adler should have written How to Read a Page instead.

Ghs

How to Read a Page was written, as a response to How to Read a Book, by the British literary critic I. A. Richards, in 1942.

JR

Richards' book was published two years after How to Read a Book. I was thinking of a clipped newspaper review that I found many years ago in a first edition of How to Read a Book. I don't recall the reviewer's name, but he was highly critical of Adler and suggested that he should have written a book titled How to Read a Page instead, since this might have made the tedious tome much shorter. The review, probably written in 1940, could have been by Richards, I suppose, who then went on to write his own book with that title.

Ghs

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