Entertainment

V. S. Naipaul on how to write.

Rules for aspiring writers:

1. Do not write long sentences.  A sentence should not have more than 10 or 12 words.
2. Each sentence should make a clear statement.  It should add to the statement that went before.  A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.
3. Do not use big words.  If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong.  The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing.  Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.
4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of.  If you break this rule you should look for other work.
5. The beginner should avoid using adjectives, except those of colour, size and number.  Use as few adverbs as possible.
6. Avoid the abstract.  Always go for the concrete.
7. Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way.  Small words; short, clear concrete statements.  It may be awkward but it's training you in the use of language.  It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university.  You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.

Emancipation

Corncob constellation,

oyster shell, drawstring pouch, dry bones.

Gris gris in the rafters.

Hoodoo in the sleeping nook.

Mojo in Linda Brent’s crawlspace.

Nineteenth century corncob cosmogram

set on the dirt floor, beneath the slant roof,

left intact the afternoon

that someone came and told those slaves

“We’re free.”

At other times her voice is calm and plain-spoken, as in this snippet from the poem “Smile”:

When I see a black man smiling

like that, nodding and smiling

with both hands visible, mouthing

“Yes, Officer,” across the street,

I think of my father, who taught us

the words “cooperate,” “officer,”

to memorize badge numbers,

who has seen black men shot at

from behind in the warm months north.

Elizabeth Alexander

(Chosen by Obama to read a poem at his inauguration.

Nixonland

Nixonland (2008), by Rick Perlstein.

Nixonland is an exceptionally readable biography of former President Richard Nixon. The life of Nixon is a story he himself deliberately created with tremendous energy, concentration, and perseverance. Many times Nixon fell into the abyss because of circumstances or his own actions, but he always managed to scramble up into the light again.

Perlstein convinces the reader that Nixon has made an indelible mark on American politics. His political actions generated ideological beliefs that still resonate today.

Indignation, by Phillip Roth

Indignation, by Phillip Roth.

A very short book, basically a novella, about a boy's college experiences.

The book (Roth's 29th) tells the story of a young Jewish boy, Markie, and his attempts to escape an over-protective father and anyone else who intrudes on his drive to get straight A's in college.

The father is a butcher and, through his experiences helping his father with such tasks as eviscerating chickens, Markie has learned to be ruthless with others, even important administrators of the college. In his intense desire to be alone, he dreams of transferring to the "University of the North Pole, where there were no phones, hospitals, or doctors, just polar bears who stalk the ice flows where the undergraduates -- naked in subzero temperatures . . ."

Eventually in a moment of weakness, when he is recovering from the flu, and consumed by a confusing feeling of undeserved guilt, Markie agrees to join the Jewish fraternity that he has declined all year.

He realizes, correctly, that this was a huge mistake. He had gone against his nature and given in to a born leader, Sonny Cottler. This move has changed his destiny; Cottler would turn out to be "the angel of death."

In this small book, Roth has managed to cram a multitude of meaning. The voices of characters seem true, each to their own nature; and his descriptions of the outside world mirror the struggles of Markie, while still remaining true to the real beauty of nature, sometimes menacing and and at other times comforting.

Two Books by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead

Gilead takes place in 1956 in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The hero is an aging minister who knows that he will probably die soon. He has a young wife and child whom he loves with the incredulity that such a blessing should come to him at this stage of his life.The hero is an aging minister who knows that he will probably die soon. He has a young wife and child whom he loves with the incredulity that such a blessing should come to him at this stage of his life.

Gilead is written in beautiful prose; not a word is wasted. Robinson's lucid writing makes the anxieties and passions of an old man consequential to the reader.

Robinson teaches at the prestigious Writers' Workshop University of Iowa.

Gilead won the 2005 National Book Critics Award for fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Home, by Marilynne Robinson.

Home tells the story of an old man and two of his children who have escaped bad situations by returning to their childhood home. Gloria, a former high school teacher, is reserved and devout. Bit by bit, she shares the story of why she had to run back home. Jack is the prodigal son who has neither written, telephoned, or visited his father for twenty years. His father finds it difficult to hide the fact that in spite of his badness, or maybe because of it, Jack is his favorite child.

In talking about the 6 children in the family, except for Jack, Gloria thinks

"They were attentive to their father all those years later, in part because they were mindful of his sorrow. And they were very kind to one another, and jovial, and fond of recalling good times and looking through old photographs so that their father would laugh and say, 'Yes, yes, you were quite a handful.' All this might have been truer because of bad conscience, or, if not that, of a grief that felt like guilt. Her good, kind, and jovial siblings were good, kind, and jovial consciously and visibly. Even as children they had been good in fact, but also in order to be seen as good. There was something disturbingly like hypocrisy about it all, thought it was meant only to compensate for Jack, who was so conspicuously not good as to cast a shadow over their household

This family group elucidates universal themes of the ties between people. In spite of its small scope, the reader wants to contemplate every word to appreciate the austere beauty of the prose.