For me, truly great novels have plot, human insight and inspired language. Stuff not only happens, so do words and flashes of truth. However, I am happy to get any two of those done well in a book--books with all three, whether genre or straight fiction, are rare and to be treasured. Kavalier and Klay, IMO, has all three. So does Charlotte's Web, for that matter.

However, much art has been designed to fuck with those buttons either through a clever manipulation of them (like say...Hitchcock)

I have to say, I got a couple of Hitchcock films under my belt and came to the conclusion that coherence never got in the way of that dude's sense of the visceral. Sadly, my sense of the visceral goes "Wow! --Hey, waitaminnit."

The wow never overwhelms the waitaminnit. Pushing buttons, by itself, is not enough to make art good; the button-pushing has to work in concert with other factors.

For another, using words to push primal buttons is considered bad writing as often as it is considered good.

However, much art has been designed to fuck with those buttons either through a clever manipulation of them (like say...Hitchcock) or by total sensory overwhelm (like say...the Velvet Underground live in 1967).

But she didn't say it was always bad writing, just that it isn't, in and of itself, a sign of good writing. As I read it.

I'm reading Bee Season by Myla Goldberg and I go between really enjoying it and finding it pretentious as all hell. I liked the spelling bee parts - all the parts that focus on Eliza, really. I can't stand the parents. The parts that talk about words and letters are beautifully written. It's a decent read and I'm almost done but there have been points at which I considered not finishing it.

Did I tell you about when the national spelling bee was taking place in the hotel across from my office and they had protesters? they were protesting the tyranny of standardized spelling. @@@@

I was reading an article about that the other day! They're all for phonetic spelling, the theory being it's easier for people with learning difficulties, which is pretty much retarded because even in my tiny country there's sixteen different pronunciations of one word and it would all get hella confusing.

Lemme see if I can find the article.

ETA: [link]

Yes, it does make it harder for dyslexics and people with similar problems. But even if things are spelled phonetically (or fonetikly), isn't the problem with perception, so they'd have much the same problem?

The kicker was the sign that said "Good Enuf 4 Him" next to a photo of Ronald Reagan.

But even if things are spelled phonetically (or fonetikly), isn't the problem with perception, so they'd have much the same problem?

More to the point, people who spell phonetically -- as T. E. Lawrence did, in his memoir -- have a bad habit of being inconsistent within one document! He wrote it Bayrut and Beroot and various other incoherent notions, whereas most of the western world would really really have been happier if he'd just stuck with one spelling (for the city of Beirut) and stopped tinkering.

(It's legit to have varying systems to transliterate into Roman characters, when the sounds don't match up exactly, but for criyi, a little internal consistency would be nice.)

I'm about 3/4 of the way through a memoir about the old west (1848), in which the author describes wandering all over what is now Colorado/Wyoming, among various Indian tribes including the Shians. It literally took me days to figure out that he meant what is now spelled Cheyenne. Ute is Yuta, Arapaho is being spelled with at least one hyphen in it (location varies), and yet, strangely, almost all references to the Sioux are spelled the way a modern speller would.

just be thankful he didn't get into the apostrophes

Relatedly, I received this email from a friend in London:

Read slowly


The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" is replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.