The never-ending search for correct protocol and etiquette continues. Today I turn the spotlight on dining and comestible affairs. While I am aware that south-east Asia features what are disturbingly termed 'developing countries', that is absolutely no reason why we should accept substandard service in the restaurant.
It is a fact, my friends, that the only venues where crisp white napkins are readily available are the 5 Star hotels. This scandalous revelation may shock the more sensitive reader but it is, I fear, demonstrably true. Equally absent is the humble dining knife, and I despair at the number of times I have attempted my repast armed only with a fork and spoon (spoon!). How, you might wonder, can one possible eat a steak or fillet mignon with a ghastly spoon? Or even 'chop sticks', as they are termed in the rough vernacular. I have never, in all my time in these climes, had the pleasure of witnessing a fish knife on the table, even though piscine dishes are superabundant. Silver service is likewise utterly alien. Candelabra have had their rightful place usurped by frightful 'fairy lights' and Royal Doulton or other prestigious dining services have been replaced by cheap formula 'Chinese' potteries of quite terrifying hues.
At the risk of appalling the more fastidious, I could go on somewhat and supply legion after legion of the most dreadful lapses in culinary service. I think that I have made my point without laboring the horrors of contemporary dining. But I do quite forcibly suggest if not urge that we of more refined taste simply refuse to accept such uneducated and slipshod standards and simply 'boycott' all venues not meeting our exacting requirements. Only this, I feel, will restore a necessary decorum into the culinary experience.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
John Updike: a eulogy and correction
I have been shocked and stunned to receive the reviews of John Updike's final and posthumous work My Father's Tears and Other Stories. It is utterly debilitating to read 'reviews' from writers once in thrall to a totally respectful awe of America's greatest living logodaedalus who now choose to trample on his grave now that he is departed. These malicious and vile excreta should and must face rebuttal.
The overall thrust of these hideous critiques is that, in his later years, Updike no longer turned the sharpest of phrase or constructed the finely-honed sentences of yore. This crypto-ageist whinge hinges on the pitiful view that his final piece lacked sound redaction and proof-reading. The vultures pounce upon various examples of unfortunate terminology and crow their triumphant and frightful battle cries of ridicule. Where once they abased themselves in Updike's titanic shadow, they now pick over his bones with withering scorn and ghastly glee.
The most appalling Judas is without a doubt Martin Amis. Writing in the UK Guardian, he invites the reader to swoon at his (Amis') own intelligence in spotting and excoriating perceived miswritings in the original text. Indeed, the writer who once praised Updike to the hilt, now uses his crass 'review' as a vehicle to puff his own vainglorious claims to greatness, if not inherit the mantle of the Great Man himself. But we are not duped by the dripping poison of this duplicitous lackey of the quill, this withered scion of a far greater forebear.
Consider, if you can bear the pain, this excruciating extract. "The following wedge of prose has two things wrong with it: one big thing and one little thing - one infelicity and one howler. Read it with attention. If you can spot both, then you have what is called a literary ear." After crudely patronising the reader he proceeds to move his case. The two factors he describes are firstly the proximity of 'prior' and 'prime' in the text "as etymological half-siblings (that) should never be left alone together without intercessionary chaperones." (my brackets) And the major howler? Two consecutive sentences ending with the words "his land". What miniscule point is this?
Having patronised the reader he then moves on to patronise Updike himself, ridiculing a "blizzard of false quantities - by which I mean rhymes and chimes and inadvertant repetitions, those toe-stubs, those excrescences and asperities that all writers hope to expunge from their work..." This is not pedantry per se. A true pedant would acknowledge this final work in the living continuum of Updike's grand oeuvre. In doing so it would be clear enough that these pastiches and apparent malapercus are intentionally deliberate and proud. Indeed Updike ("perhaps the greatest viruoso stylist since Nabokov" sneers an ungrateful Amis) is intentionally playing with his minions and provoking them from beyond the grave. And lo, the fools take the bait.
In more courteous times it was held to be self-axiomatic that "De mortuis, nil nisi bonum" (For those tragic unfortunates without the benefits of a classical education I translate: Say nothing but good things about the Dead). Yet these myopic pygmies dash to defile the tombstone of a giant of Ozymandian proportions. It may be controversial to say so, but it is my firm-held belief that these malignant ingrates were to some measure aware of the waning might of the septuagenarian Updike, but remained locked in their grossly sycophantic embrace of his work until his death. Amis, indeed, was Updike's most enthusiastic acolyte. Then, post-mortem, like rancid ghouls they emerge from their dark damp holes to gloat, only now finding the 'courage' to snipe and ridicule. It is only possible to hold such feeble actions in the deepest contempt, and pillory these miscreants pitilessly and ceaselessly.
The overall thrust of these hideous critiques is that, in his later years, Updike no longer turned the sharpest of phrase or constructed the finely-honed sentences of yore. This crypto-ageist whinge hinges on the pitiful view that his final piece lacked sound redaction and proof-reading. The vultures pounce upon various examples of unfortunate terminology and crow their triumphant and frightful battle cries of ridicule. Where once they abased themselves in Updike's titanic shadow, they now pick over his bones with withering scorn and ghastly glee.
The most appalling Judas is without a doubt Martin Amis. Writing in the UK Guardian, he invites the reader to swoon at his (Amis') own intelligence in spotting and excoriating perceived miswritings in the original text. Indeed, the writer who once praised Updike to the hilt, now uses his crass 'review' as a vehicle to puff his own vainglorious claims to greatness, if not inherit the mantle of the Great Man himself. But we are not duped by the dripping poison of this duplicitous lackey of the quill, this withered scion of a far greater forebear.
Consider, if you can bear the pain, this excruciating extract. "The following wedge of prose has two things wrong with it: one big thing and one little thing - one infelicity and one howler. Read it with attention. If you can spot both, then you have what is called a literary ear." After crudely patronising the reader he proceeds to move his case. The two factors he describes are firstly the proximity of 'prior' and 'prime' in the text "as etymological half-siblings (that) should never be left alone together without intercessionary chaperones." (my brackets) And the major howler? Two consecutive sentences ending with the words "his land". What miniscule point is this?
Having patronised the reader he then moves on to patronise Updike himself, ridiculing a "blizzard of false quantities - by which I mean rhymes and chimes and inadvertant repetitions, those toe-stubs, those excrescences and asperities that all writers hope to expunge from their work..." This is not pedantry per se. A true pedant would acknowledge this final work in the living continuum of Updike's grand oeuvre. In doing so it would be clear enough that these pastiches and apparent malapercus are intentionally deliberate and proud. Indeed Updike ("perhaps the greatest viruoso stylist since Nabokov" sneers an ungrateful Amis) is intentionally playing with his minions and provoking them from beyond the grave. And lo, the fools take the bait.
In more courteous times it was held to be self-axiomatic that "De mortuis, nil nisi bonum" (For those tragic unfortunates without the benefits of a classical education I translate: Say nothing but good things about the Dead). Yet these myopic pygmies dash to defile the tombstone of a giant of Ozymandian proportions. It may be controversial to say so, but it is my firm-held belief that these malignant ingrates were to some measure aware of the waning might of the septuagenarian Updike, but remained locked in their grossly sycophantic embrace of his work until his death. Amis, indeed, was Updike's most enthusiastic acolyte. Then, post-mortem, like rancid ghouls they emerge from their dark damp holes to gloat, only now finding the 'courage' to snipe and ridicule. It is only possible to hold such feeble actions in the deepest contempt, and pillory these miscreants pitilessly and ceaselessly.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
W(h)ither the semi-colon?
In the delicious French language it is alive and thriving. En vivant comme les connoisseurs d'un bon gout. The exquisite micro-pause, the exact hiatus as a gear change in sentence construction; fraught, simply fraught with meaning. The comma is a wisp on the wind, the colon a Stop sign urging mobile circumspection before proceeding. But the semi-colon is both, and neither. It is the athlete's gasp, the gap in a baby's cries, a little whisper in the barrage of noise.
In Spanish, it thrives. In German it is revered (ah! the blessed umlaut!). In Polish it is feted in the literary canon. Even in Turkish it has its diehard enthusiasts. But in one major world language, the one that (ironically) gave birth to the semi-colon, it is in near terminal decline.
As the English language degenerates into brutish syntax, textspeak, twitter and the grunts of the farmyard, a deep appreciation of correct punctuation is no longer the prized asset it was. Indeed, the aficionado of a delicate expression may invite open ridicule and even scorn. I myself, upon making essential corrections to the glaring punctuational inaccuracies of colleagues, have endured levels of opprobium not witnessed since the extinction of the Neanderthals. And in language of similar sophistication as that hypothesised for our vanished cousins.
I urge a review and re-examination, if not a nascent campaign to roll back the creeping erosion of our language. Let us take as our banner the semi-colon and march towards its full and comprehensive restoration in everyday speech and writing. The fightback starts here, let the faint-hearted scoff and the ignorant sneer; this day shall be remembered as the point where the tide turned.
I shall be encouraged by the "poll" (ghastly word!) that I have published below this post. Please vote and declare your allegiance to the sanctity of proper and accurate punctuation.
In Spanish, it thrives. In German it is revered (ah! the blessed umlaut!). In Polish it is feted in the literary canon. Even in Turkish it has its diehard enthusiasts. But in one major world language, the one that (ironically) gave birth to the semi-colon, it is in near terminal decline.
As the English language degenerates into brutish syntax, textspeak, twitter and the grunts of the farmyard, a deep appreciation of correct punctuation is no longer the prized asset it was. Indeed, the aficionado of a delicate expression may invite open ridicule and even scorn. I myself, upon making essential corrections to the glaring punctuational inaccuracies of colleagues, have endured levels of opprobium not witnessed since the extinction of the Neanderthals. And in language of similar sophistication as that hypothesised for our vanished cousins.
I urge a review and re-examination, if not a nascent campaign to roll back the creeping erosion of our language. Let us take as our banner the semi-colon and march towards its full and comprehensive restoration in everyday speech and writing. The fightback starts here, let the faint-hearted scoff and the ignorant sneer; this day shall be remembered as the point where the tide turned.
I shall be encouraged by the "poll" (ghastly word!) that I have published below this post. Please vote and declare your allegiance to the sanctity of proper and accurate punctuation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)