Proust defended against the barbarians

I am appalled to see a bilious, vomitose and utterly intemperate assault upon Proust by Germaine Greer. By her reading A la recherche du temps perdu is too long, too obscure, grammatically otiose and incomplete. Therefore it is, in her view, 'a waste of time' to ever embark upon reading it.

While it may be true that one may read several pages before encountering any punctuation marks this, surely, marks Proust's genius in innovation. Furthermore Proust so so famously fastidious that extant editions are so heavily over-written as to be virtually illegible. His punctiliousness in the search of perfection in no small way explains the incompleteness of his oeuvre: it was only the Grim Reaper himself that interrupted this process of endless redaction.

But it really is her scurrilous slight of the series being 'too long' and 'too obscure' that draws my near-incandescent wrath. Since when has 'length' been a deterrent to the robust and muscular reader? It reminds me of the fatuous critique of Mozart by the Austrian emperor - 'too many notes'. This point must immediately be dismissed as vapid meaninglessness though, like the Emperor, I am sure that Greer has her sycophantic assenters.

And as for obscurity? What on earth is possibly condemnable about being willingly obscure? Must we have sound-bite clarity in all aspects of this vulgar monochromatic visualisation of correct writing? After all, one man's obscurity (or should that be woman's?) is an epicurean feast to another; possibly, we might add, to one with the intellect to mine nuggets of challenging apercus.

No, Proust is the unchallenged colossus of the literary world in the last century and we cannot countenance these garrulous snipings from our Antipodean harpy. Let time be the judge: will we in the next century be discussing Proust or The Female Eunuch? I rest my case.

Pestilence, I am discommoded.

I am afflicted by a tropical malady of the gravest nature. It had always been my considered view that such pestilences restricted their visitations to uncouth or unwashed personages, but it seems that I may be in error. It would appear that these microbial parasites are utterly undiscerning and may even choose to afflict the fastidious and morally upright.

I have never had to make so many urgent and non-negotiable appointments with la salle du bain, spending not inconsiderable time periods in the most disturbing if not explosive evacuations. It is most fortunate that I had the foresight to install quality porcelain, but then 'forward planning' has always been a passion of mine.

I have urgently consulted with various medical 'types' who have tried to reassure me that my malady is a typical if not low-level food infection but I simply will not be patronised or fobbed off by these uncultured persons. Such is the gravity of my confinement that I have been forced to contract an auxiliary nurse so that I may delegate ablutionary and cleansing duties to one more skilled in these distasteful duties. Meanwhile I must endure the most excruciating headaches (migraine for sure) and cramps that would gratify the most sadistic henchman of Torquemada himself.

Needless to say, I shall be hors de combat for the foreseeable future, but may snatch such pitifully fleeting moments of tranquility that I am allotted to continue with my most pressing duties at the cutting edge of the academic endeavor.

Intrusions & sundry impertenences

As you might well expect, I am regularly invited by various 'magazines' to offer some heavyweight counter-balance to the torrent of dross that habituates such pages. At times their fees can be semi-lucrative but I am not in any way driven by such crude mercenary sentiments; I deem it a duty to offer definitive rulings upon whatever conundrums animate their feeble imaginations.

So imagine, if you can, my utter horror at receiving such an entreaty from something called "Hello!" (note the frightful exclamatory mode wedded to a fatuous sub-greeting) in the form of what they call a 'Questionnaire' (a hideous conflation of Romance language and crass Americanisms, so jarring upon the ear).

These upstart felons launch a violently intrusive assault upon the deepest sanctity of my privacy by expecting me to answer a range of scurrilous questions that can offer no meaningful elucidation or exegesis to the Great Unwashed. While I prevaricate somewhat here, perhaps it may be judicious to leap to an unexpurgated exemplary illustration of the 'types' of information they seek.

"What is your star sign?" they enquire. Not only is such information held on a strictly need-to-know basis but the question is a veritable Trojan Horse that invites me to throw my weight behind the ghastly pseudo-science of astrology simply by providing an answer. I will not tread that path.

"Who is your favorite movie actress?" Answering this question may in no small measure lead the reader to suspect that I have any interest whatsoever in the shallow 'goings-on' of vapid celebrities and air-headed sirens of the screen. This question is simply impossible to answer with any real sense of moral probity.

"What is your pet and what is its name?" This abomination requires no further comment.

"Do you have a favorite spoon?" Now why on Gods earth would anyone at all need to learn the answer to this impudent frippery? I am well known for my predilection for fine cutlery but I simply cannot see how my sharing my erudition on the subject will advance the couture of those unable to understand such niceties.

"What are you doing right now?" I would have thought that the answer to this is superabundantly clear: I am struggling to control an incandescent wrath at their tortured syntax and intrusive assumptions.

I could go on. And even further on. But as Shelley famously noted "'Tis better to remain acquit than expunge to the latter dross". And so this uninvited intrusion was hurled into my 'delete box' from where there shall be no escape, not even for the paltry inducement of $500 that they dangle before me. A stand simply must be made and, as ever, I am the one to make it.

The avoidable horror of sociability

I am not, as a person, noted for any real sense of 'sociability'. This, let me hurry to add, does not suggest that I by any means eschew gatherings with like-minded, highly educated personages of the correct calibre and aesthetic sensitivity. Such coteries may be informative and even pleasant in the right circumstances.

No, I am in fact referring to those 'events' that one is coerced into attending for no other reason than to appear sociable in the eyes of such intemperate personages who really have no right to form such vexatious value judgements and seek to impose them on others. It is nothing short of moral blackmail of a most disarmingly insidious character and the extrication of self from such tangled entreaties leads one to set ones sail almost to the hither shores of creative mendacity.

At Christmas time such complex and abhorrent entrapments loom over the horizon with distressing frequency and urgency. As a confirmed bachelor I am more than contented with my own company, where at least I can be certain of a modicum of decorum and probity. But no, these snooping 'busybodies' feel it incumbent upon themselves to lure me into their ghastly 'sociabilities' without respite or decency. While I fully comprehend how my mere presence would lend some much-needed gravitas and dignity to their proceedings I must of course demur.

"You just cannot be alone at Christmas" they plead. Why ever not? If I wished to follow the swinish herd with their drunken kitsch boorish televisual 'viewing' and over-indulgent frightful lard-ridden foodstuffs then I surely would. (Though I could never, ever, bring myself to don one of those gaudy and horrible paper 'crowns' that seem so essential to such gatherings).

"Think of the children" they cry. Oh but I do. It is my adamant rule to never attempt any conversation with anyone younger than an advanced post-graduate student as it would be simply pointless to try to engage with such juveniles with obviously undeveloped politesse or accomplishment. I recoil with apoplectic horror at the prospect of being entombed with mewling screeching infants whose only discernible skill is to visit the bathroom to defecate with assistance or phonetically mutilate a traditional song whose roots pass their dimmest comprehension. Yet their parents regard such 'abilities' as somehow attractive and engaging and some even go so far as to inflict 'videos' of their brutish progeny performing such monstrosities upon a terrified captive audience. They even seem to view such 'abilities' in their brood as hard evidence of a breakthrough in human evolution to an altogether higher stage. I can think of no greater horror this side of Voltaire.

It has even been tangentially suggested that I hold a soiree of my own, keeping an iron grip upon the list of those invited under a set of stringent criteria of my own personal devising. But the risk of intrusive 'gate-crashers' is simply too great; I cannot bear the thought of them belching and expelling other noxious gases in my own dear home and leaving smeared fingerprints hither and yon, even upon my crystal goblettes. I would simply have to move, there really is no alternative, and the very thought is too stressful to bear.

Since Bangkok seems to boast no obvious Lutheran church where high ritual mingles with solemn liturgy, I shall perforce be spending Christmas alone once more. I will at least be able to dine upon acceptable viands brought in by bespoke 5 star hotels, listen to a decent Sibelius or even a Mahler should the whim strike me, and peruse the current crop of learned journals at my leisure. I can at least be certain that the napkins are crisply ironed and the silver service adequately polished to a lustre not dissimilar to the celebrated vembrace of Menelaus. I will need to check the sherry bottle to establish if it requires replenishment or even replacement after last years festivities but this is not a pressing matter. There is time aplenty to finesse the critical details as needs arise. And I will do so at my own leisure, under no compulsion from the howling pack of pleading coercers who may then go forth and mix with all and sundry, should that be their wish. But in the immortal lines of Ezra Pound "Leave me out, Buster".

Unread authors: crime or vindication?

Over the weekend (hideous phrase! Over two days one week ends and another begins, what gives termination precedence over commencement?). But already I digress. Over the last two days I have received the usual several 'e-mails' pleading for my assistance in solving seemingly intractable problems in the literary and linguistic fields. Normally I tend to ignore these pathetic petitions as below my station but one notification in particular caught my attention as worthy of some contemplation. I will share it with you now.

It seems that there is an academic going by the dubious name of Joe Moron working at a place called Liverpool John Moores University in England (a jaw cruncher of which I had hitherto been blissfully unaware). He has established a 'charity' entitled the Society of Unread Authors (SUA) with the aim of getting woefully unread personages to start to read those publications that have never been read. He wishes to "support all those writers who are left impoverished and traumatised by failing to acquire a readership." This leaves me intrigued and puzzled in roughly equal measure.

While I have a visceral aversion to 'statistics' with their frightful numerical symmetries, he uses such devices to tell an alarming tale. He claims that 200,000 titles are published annually in the UK (he only seems interested in this one country) and 800 appeared on a single day in October as a prelude to Christmas 'sales', most of which were written by someone called Dan Brown or even the disturbing-sounding Ant and Dec. The sheer weight of this publishing pushes other, allegedly worthy authors aside; it seems that they cannot in any way compete with celebrity-obsessed trivia and glutinous 'pot-boilers'. Thousands upon thousands of books are simply not being read at all.

He posits a dual strategy:

1. Recruit enforcers to coerce people into reading the books they buy and ignore, paying them to do so if necessary;
2. Delay publication of many unsuitable books with key words in their title - he cites Angels, Little Book Of, Loose Women, Jeremy Kyle (whoever that is) etc. This should allow people time to read the books they should be reading but, for whatever reason, are not.

I am perplexed by his passion. I myself am no stranger to being an unread author. Indeed I am proud to note that there are few with the stamina or intellect to plough through the dense prolixity of the muscular prose in my published work, not to mention my customarily opaque yet compendious footnoted asides. I am satisfied that my oeuvre is read in the 'right circles', by eminent people with the wit and perspicacity to learn from my cogent analysis. So why should it matter that all these thousands of books be read, even by people completely inadequate to the task?

He feels that this will "enrich our cultural life". I am by no means so sure. Imagine if we unleashed all 'sorts' of menial personages and paid them to read. Who then would empty our garbage, serve our meals or repair our machines? I shudder in trepidation.

We also need to address the question of why these books deserve to be read. I vividly recall the gruesome experience of being trapped in an elevator with a brutish economist who mercilessly harangued me on something he termed 'supply and demand'. Now, using this frightfully simplistic taxonomy, can we not go so far as to suggest that there are simply too many books for people to read? Indeed, there may not actually be that many personages capable of reading them, unless they contain gaudy pictures or came accompanied with coloring sets. If we are producing hundreds of thousands of books a minute when there are so few learned persons actually fitted to read them, then disaster looms.

No, it is better to simply stand back and let the market do its work. We cannot compel or bribe unsuitable persons to read when they are better suited to more menial operations. Likewise, any 'commercially minded' publisher will surely balk at churning out millions of texts when he discovers to his chagrin that nobody is actually buying them. Government intervention, forcing all 'types' of people to read to set targets and quotas, simply will not work and should be resisted on principle. It is but a short step to a bureaucratic strangulation of freedoms and the Ministry of Compulsory Lexicography. Is it not better that uneducated persons are reading trash than nothing at all? So, let them do as they will, even reading this so-called Ant and his doubtlessly worthy colleague Dec. Things will out in the end.

The overdue death of Blogs

A furious debate is raging in the annals of the distinguished publication Proceedings in Syntactical Taxonomy (hereafter PiST). Naturally enough I have been invited, if not cajoled into providing some illumination and final settlement of a knotty problem and I am content to provide readers of these pages with a limited but sufficiently adequate brief preview. (For the full rendition please see the upcoming PiST Vol LXVI, 4, 2009).

The divergence in opinion hinges on the neonym 'weblog' and its' even more disturbing abbreviation 'blog'. (regular readers will be keenly aware of my visceral aversion to the latter).

In the red corner sit the linguistic evolutionists led by Stieglitz and (to a more ambiguous extent) Cohn. Their argument will be familiar to most educated readers but suffice it to say that they view language as organic and evolving. Hence words emerge and, through the etymological selection (or otherwise) of users, employed and eventually discarded as no longer fit for purpose. They claim that such tendencies have been noted since the eminent Dr Johnson first mooted the possibility in the 17th century and point to the stark number of words listed in his path finding dictionary that are no longer in 'common' usage.

In the case of 'weblog' they note the emergence of the 'world-wide web' and the concomitant arising of personal reflections such as these very pages. The elision between 'web' and 'log' is seen as a natural adaptation to technological imperatives and the need to categorise and thus distinguish types of website. Hence 'weblog' erupts upon the scene as a 'natural convenience' in taxonomic innovation and its widespread acceptance and adoption 'proves' its evolutionary success. This term, then, will endure until such a time as the linguistic landscape 'selects' other mutations to prosper and eventually 'replace' it. This somewhat determinist view even hints that the emergence of such terms is inevitable as the environment selects and discards with dispassion. There is nothing we can do. One might even contemplate the 'Selfish Meme', if you will excuse a brief detour into jollity (with apologies to Professor Dawkins).

In the blue corner sit the neo-traditionalists and a loose umbrella group of schismatic orthodoxists, led in no small way by Shriver and von Unterfeld, with a tentative nod to Grelm. Here, the emergence of this term is seen as an etymological failure of pre-existing words to capture the zeitgeist with its endless thirst for novelty. So 'memory lapse' blinds us to perfectly adequate pre-terminous synonyms while 'pop culture' (and its ghastly insistence for predigested stripped-down simplicity) invents a disturbing neology of increasing vacuity and trite content.

Such tendencies inevitably ignore the rich and complex ancestry of ancient and current terminology, conflating Graeco-Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Normandic and even Low Dutch predeterminants, thus dangerously diluting the 'pedigree' of our language into an eclectic rag-bag devoid of historicity. Such neologisms should therefore be dismissed out of hand, and an urgent search be mounted to reclaim ancient syntax for a worthy restoration into everyday usage, once acceptance has been agreed and approved by notable experts. We must not permit 'language creep' to be driven by unfettered multimedia, such as the hideous yet omnipresent MTV. The purity of the language must be preserved at all costs before we descend into a guttural pit of chaos and adumbrate anarchy, no less. A rigorously bold camp, methinks at length.

Of course these limited 'thumbnail' sketches do scant justice to the textual complexity of these two positions (if positions they are) yet suffice it to say that few would quibble with my overarching proximity to such entrenched and polarised views.

So now let us hurry without further ado to my ruling that should unite all linguists under a common banner and permit a thorough remedial review of current emergent trends. Should this become known as "Hegenious' Law" then I shall piously and humbly accept the distinction. That, dear reader, is entirely up to you in the efficacy of your lobbying of the appropriate authorities.

While I am inherently drawn towards the propriety of the conservative camp (as I prefer to call them) the claims of the evolutionists bear some small merit. However, where both camps fail is their common neglect of the crucial concepts of verbal aesthetics and onomatopoeia.

I am sure that all fastidious logodaedali will recoil in horror at the sheer ugliness of the word Weblog. It really is ghastly, and its appalling cousin Blog triply so. Web-log, the silent hyphen screaming in embarrassment at its inclusion, the terminal 'g' tortured out of position by its conjunction to 'bl', a co-proximity never before ventured without grief (see Katana & Hooting on this for further insight). We must reject such dire malignancies out of pure aesthetic duty. It is simply as crucial as that.

Add to this the critical onomatopoeic dimension then we have terms that inexorably sound like the bubbling of some frightful primeval tar pit. If you will excuse an illuminating levity, "Blog, Bloop, Blog, Gloop, Weblog" they go, emitting noxious connotations not totally dissimilar to the toxic gases associated with such distressing morasses. And with similar results, poisoning the streams of language with noisome derivatives that scandalise the screeds of old. The 3 Witches of Macbeth and even the Bard of Avon himself would stand aghast.

Hence all 'new' terms must satisfy the dual tests of aesthetic and onomatopoeic sensitivity. Nothing else will do.

Thus my bold approach in no small measure synthesises the salient and beneficial aspects of both protagonists positions into an indisputable way forward. I do not stand, Canute-like, against the rising tide of new terminology, I only insist that it is monitored and controlled under a set of stringent criteria.

In urging the immediate execution and obliteration of the terms Weblog and Blog I even go so far as to tentatively suggest a viable replacement, namely Personal Ruminations In Cyberspace (or PRIC, for the acronymically-minded). This most suitable neologism shows robust etymological roots with a notable bow to the vitality of Anglo-Saxon semantics of royalty, together with a lineage dating back to Beowulf, if not beyond. In implicitly critiquing the evolutionist stance I find myself pioneering an adaptation of Intelligent Design, but with the crucial distinction that the Deity delegates the development of language to a panel of highly-educated and intelligent people, such as those who gather around campfires of enlightenment in the deep dark forest of ignorance. (Such as this PRIC).

Of course this short sketch fails to cover the full complexity of my compelling exegesis (see PiST Op Cit), but, suffice it to say that by posting here I have unleashed a verbal revolution of the most far-reaching consequences that shall be reverently discussed down the centuries. Only due modesty prevents me from adding more.

Sobriety and its discontents

Is it just me, or have other right-thinking people noticed a substantial increase in people who can only be described as excessively inebriated? I seem to encounter them daily, often in broad daylight, lurching and drooling in public places without any obvious sense of shame.

I have even upon occasion been approached by such 'types' and attempts at communication have been essayed. However it is totally impossible to enter into any meaningful or illuminating debate when one protagonist can only grunt and screech in a manner more befitting to the farmyard. It really is rather unsettling to be confronted by these disturbed individuals and their eccentric gestures and guttural 'noises'.

It seems to me that official agencies are in a very real sense failing decent law abiding people by leaving these crazed persons to ramble with impunity wheresoever they will. Moreover, I am sure that I am not the only observer who has been aesthetically perturbed by the range of nasty accoutrements such 'types' invariably carry. It is by no means rare to witness them clutching ugly (non-vintage I'm sure) bottles poorly concealed in vulgar paper or even plastic bags (the horror!).

It is probably prudent not to dwell at any length on their dress code, but suffice it to say that bespoke tailors rarely choose to promote their wares on personages such as this. And personal hygiene seems not to figure in any way, shape or form. Inexcusably dreadful!

I have heard that such behavior may also be a close correlate of 'drug' use, but I am convinced that no such phenomena could exist in my own respectable neighborhood.

Nobody seems willing to take a stand on this pressing issue. Indeed I have on more than one occasion seen passersby cross the road or even turn and flee when encountering these shambling derelicts. So once more I feel myself forced to take a lead and plant the banner of propriety in pointing to a correct response. I feel that all people of decorum and fastidious taste should simply ignore on every occasion all such distressing encounters. The perpetrators are clearly doing it for attention-seeking purposes and, if we starve them of the oxygen of consideration, then they will have no choice but to return to a normal and acceptable lifestyle. This may strike some as tough or even harsh, but I do in no small measure believe that this is the only viable way to reclaim our streets.