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Reading Gary Lutz’s thoughts on linguistic theory and consummated language, I was struck deeply by how much his theories of deconstruction resonated with my own creative writing tendencies and methodologies. His opening reflections on his development as both a reader and writer immediately tapped into my own desires and expectations of language:
As a reader, I finally knew what I wanted to read, and as someone now yearning to become a writer, I knew exactly what I wanted to try to write: narratives of steep verbal topography, narratives in which the sentence is a complete, portable solitude, a minute immediacy of consummated language—the sort of sentence that, even when liberated from its receiving context, impresses itself upon the eye and the ear as a totality, an omnitude, unto itself. I once later tried to define this kind of sentence as “an outcry combining the acoustical elegance of the aphorism with the force and utility of the load-bearing, tractional sentence of more or less conventional narrative.”
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“Better than a poem, music beats us”
Biography of a word witch here, as well as her bibliography, collection of works, and fragments of her scrapbook here. Also of interest; a small treasure of recordings through which we may remain haunted.
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Canadian Malcolm Gladwell represents the crest of modern public intellectuals. For he is a man who is not exclusively defined by one field or subject, but rather by a myriad of interests, and is therefore designated to the deceivingly unassuming term of “writer”. This label is possibly the only one that fully encompasses his intellectual range: from history (the field in which he majored), to sociology, psychology, marketing and his sideline interests in fine arts, sciences and the mine-riddled corporate world. But what makes Gladwell so successful isn’t just his mastery of these often complex subjects; it is his talent to translate their meanings to the everyday man and woman. As a mediator between academia and popular culture, Gladwell consistently highlights some of the most interesting human processes and social phenomenons of the twenty-first century. His most recent publication covers the fascinating epistemology of genius and success – the trajectories “prodigies” follow, and the certain environmental factors that come into play when analysing the odysseys taken by accomplished individuals. His methodology may be somewhat contested, particularly in the way by which he nonchalantly dismisses genetic and cultural elements quite obviously influential in his subjects’ spheres. However despite these hiccups, and quite possibly owing to the aura conjured by his previous bestsellers, most readers will turn a blind eye to these inconsistencies and extract instead the motivational benefits he proffers through his engaging prose.
