Brobdingnagian lexemes*

There I was, getting happily reacquainted with the frantic and furious Yossarian in Catch 22, when Joseph Heller went and tripped me over a huge big word.
"Infundibuliform". It sat there, fat and smug on the page, taking up half a line with erudite verbosity. Even in context I still couldn't put my finger on exactly what it meant.
"...had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile..."
Ardent readers will nod their heads in quiet understanding when I tell you that I have a system for dealing with random injections of sesquipedalian loquaciousness. If a dictionary is not at hand, I fold over the bottom corner of the page so I can look up said word later.
(By the way it means funnel-shaped. Why didn't he just say so?)
There's a time and a place for big words, but I try to use smart words - that is, words that will ensure your reader knows what you're on about. Doesn't matter if it's plain language, it's whatever's appropriate to move your story forward and take your readers with you.

If you're writing for an audience of intelligentsia whose preference is to engage in the manifestation of prolix exposition, splendid! Use big words.

If you're writing a novel for people who enjoy a great story, use smart words.

I'm pretty sure if my mate Bob the Builder was reading this, he'd have zoned out by the third syllable of the infundi-word. He reckons I'm guilty of magniloquence here in my blog. But I have a word for you Mister: 
"Sesquipedalophobia" - the fear of long words. In more severe cases known as "Hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" ;)


* 'big words'

Having his cake...

Synchronicity is a recurring theme in my life. Yesterday I was flipping through an old favourite, EM Forster's A Room With A View - reminding myself what a cool story it is. Today, I came across a cool story about EM Forster himself.
Short sight was a problem for Mr Forster, the English author and essayist who had five novels published in his lifetime. On attending the wedding of his friend Lord Harewood, who also happened to be the Queen's cousin, Forster is said to have bowed gravely to the wedding cake, under the mistaken impression it was Her Royal Highness, Queen Mary.
Natural mistake really.

Luscious libraries

Handelingkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staaten-Generaal, The Hague, Netherlands

Rennie Mackintosh Library, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil 

Wow! Check out these amazing libraries from around the world. Home to hundreds of thousands of treasured tomes and keepers of the literary faith, oh readers.
I reckon the image of the contemporary suburban library needs to be sexed up. It might help get people back into books. 
Who regularly visits their local library these days? Mums with kids; oldies looking for something to do; the odd student on a deadline? 
I plead guilty of neglecting my local library. I can't remember the last time I paid it a visit. Probably around the same time I last sent a fax. I resolve to visit libraries more often, they play a critical role in nurturing literacy in our communities and they deserve our patronage.
Manly Library may not quite have the history or grandeur of other, more striking bibliothecas, but any place dedicated to the humble book is hallowed ground to me.
If you've been to any awesome libraries I'd love to see a pic :)

Leaders as readers...#2

I was pretty uninspired after Thursday's post - not by the books our incumbent leaders chose, but by the leadership of our incumbent leaders.
So I'm rectifying that by taking a look at the reading recommendations of some well known people of influence (whose opinions may be a little more noteworthy!):
Nelson Mandela: Invictus (poem), William Ernest Henley
Richard Branson: Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
Oprah Winfrey: The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Mark Twain: The French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle

George Orwell: the works of Somerset Maugham

Bill Clinton: The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

Meryl Streep: The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

Bill Gates: The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

Jodi Picoult: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Laurens van der Post: Middlemarch, George Eliot

Barack Obama: Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

Invictus, it goes without saying, is an awesome poem. Swallows and Amazons was a favourite of mine too growing up. And I adore The Great Gatsby, good choice Bill Gates. Am thinking of adding Song of Solomon to my reading list. Obama is a voracious reader so his list of favourites is a mile long, you can see more of them here. 

I struggled to find out the favourite books of famous women of influence. Can you come up with any others?

Horrors!

This is scary.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in 2009 that the average Australian watches three hours of television per day, but spends only half an hour reading.
Of that half an hour, preferred reading material is primarily newspapers and magazines, with books lagging behind in third place.
Switch off the box and start reading people!!

Book by its cover is a blog project by Julia Rothman who writes about beautful books she's collected.

I heart art

Love these book covers by designer and illustrator Jim Tierney. 

Check out his website.

Leaders as readers...

"The greatest leaders have always been readers. And not just any readers, but deep, thoughtful ones. In ancient times the likes of Pericles, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian were steeped in books. American history offers a host of enlightened readers: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and both Roosevelts. And British history yields much the same impression: Pitt the Younger, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Winston Churchill. Indeed, it's difficult to name great statesmen who shunned the written word and the cultural and civilisational heritage it represents." 
  - Macgregor Duncan and Andrew Leigh, The Australian, March 3, 2010.
I'm a strong believer in reading for leading. Reading - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, mass media, whatever -  informs personal and professional development in so many ways. 
The authors of the story quoted above went on to find out what our own politicians like to read, saying Australia has produced merely 'serviceable' leaders, rather than the Jeffersons, Lincolns and Churchills of this world.
After polling our pollies on their reading habits, these were the top novels:
Favourite books:
Tony Abbott (Leader of the Opposition): Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Lindsay Tanner (Finance Minister): War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Julia Gillard (Deputy Prime Minister): Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
Nick Minchin (Opposition Senate Leader): War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Chris Bowen (Human Services Minister): The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck and To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Andrew Laming (Liberal MP): Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Peter Garrett (Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts): March, Geraldine Brooks
Alex Hawke (Federal Member for Mitchell): Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Chris Pyne (Federal Member for Sturt): Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Maxine McKew (Member for Bennelong): Middlemarch, George Eliot
Tanya Plibersek (Minister for Housing and Minister for the Status of Women): Persuasion, Jane Austen
Joe Hockey (Shadow Treasurer): Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Hmmm.... a fairly predictable collection, with the brave exception of Alex Hawke. I'm just relieved that any of our politicians take the time to read fiction. It is, as British philosopher Edmund Burke said, a pathway into the "moral imagination", enabling an appreciation of the human condition and an understanding of one's deepest self. 
Our 'leaders' have a way to go yet.
So, if reading helps one become a better leader - what books should our pollies get stuck into?


NB: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has purportedly written a book (!) didn't respond to the survey.

Finding cadence

A swing in your lounge room... bliss...! Maybe a little tricky for reading but perfect for dreaming up stories...:) I want one.

Photo by Jeltje

On muses...#2

Have you ever read the interview section in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine where they ask a personality a standard set of quick questions? 
There's one that goes something like: "It's not trendy but I love...?"
My answer would be "it's not trendy but I love the epic poets". 
And they're the reason the whole 'Muse' thing began. There are some brilliant stories within the lyrical language of the ancient poets. 
Homer wasn't one to mince words. OK so his Odyssey is pretty long (epic, in fact) but in the oral tradition of the times it was intended to be sung rather than read - and being the 8th century BC think 'entertainment' rather than 'academia'. Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus' 10 year journey home following the fall of Troy - a loaded tale - so it makes sense that Homer invokes the muse right off the bat in the opening line: 
"Sing to me of the man, Muse, of twists and turns driven time and again off course." 
About 10 lines into The Aeneid, after defiantly stating his independence, Virgil sought help (rather frustratedly by the sounds) from the deities :
"O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate; 
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;"
Shortly after Homer and Virgil, a third heavyweight showed up. In his poem Metamorphoses, Ovid pretty much describes the history and creation of the world in 15 volumes. And with such a mammoth task it's no wonder he opens with a plea for divine inspiration to the Muses:
"Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing: 
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring, 
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat; 
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:"
So my point is, the original purpose of the muse was to create insights and inspire new artistic forms. To call upon a higher power to help unleash the limitless potential of the individual. 
But if you think about the modern day muse - the painter's latest infatuation, or the famous supermodel fashion designers aspire to dress - it's all about inspiring imitation. Creating something in the mould of someone else. 
That's one reason why I love the epic poets. Those guys were way ahead of their time. They were true, great, original thinkers. We need a few of those kind of people in the 21st century. Any contenders?


NB. A case in point. When you google search images of Homer, you get about a million pictures of Homer...Simpson.

On muses...#1

I'm thinking about muses. You know, the nine Greek Goddesses who inspired the creation of literature and the arts: Clio, Thalia, Calliope, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Urania and Terpsichore.
More specifically, I'm thinking about modern day incarnations of the muse. 
At some point between Ancient Greek and contemporary times, the muse morphed from being an invisible, spiritual deity into a living, breathing (mortal) seductress. 
Take Pablo Picasso as an example. He famously anointed each woman he loved, and who became his subject, as his muse. 
Here in Australia during the 1930s, '40s and '50s, the art fraternity appeared willing to share one's muse. Sir Sydney Nolan and Albert Tucker both claimed arts patron Sunday Reed as their muse, an arrangement she, apparently, also found most agreeable.
But there was one 20th Century dude I can think of, Jim Morrison (he of The Doors), who harked back to the Classical world and said his musical inspiration was fed by the spirits. 
Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung wrote that the muse represents the male's anima: "Immortal". She is "disguised under the many names we give to creative impulses and ideas."
Francine Prose (so aptly named) laid out the purpose of the modern muse in her book The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and Artists they Inspired.
"Artists rarely create for the Muse, to win or keep the Muse's love and admiration, but rather for themselves, for the world, and for the more inchoate and unquantifiable imperatives of art itself. Their muses are merely the instruments that raise the emotional and erotic temperature high enough, churn up the weather in a way that may speed and facilitate the artist's labors."
Which brings me to ask:
How to invoke the muse? What's the difference between a muse and someone whose influence in some way shapes your craft? And why, in the age of all things supposedly being equal, is the muse still typically female? Who can we women creatives call upon for inspiration in the absence of the male muse?
And well may you ask - who cares? 
Creatives care, because inspiration and motivation is the fuel that keeps the writer / poet / artist powering through to complete their work. And if we don't know where the fuel comes from, we can't get more when we run out.
So bear with me while I keep musing on the muse...there's a work of fiction within that's reliant upon a long and steady supply of fuel.


*Apollo and the Muses (above), Simon Vouet, c. 1640

The rules according to Dyer...

Have you read Geoff Dyer's Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi?
It's about Jeff Atman, an arts journalist who doubles as a travel writer. You know, holidays thinly disguised as work. 
The first part of the book, tripping through the muddled streets of Venice on the arts/party circuit during the Biennale, was engrossing. 
The second part, sliding into an impenetrable state of malaise in Varanasi, just about put me into a coma. Which was perhaps the intention.
Dyer was in Australia a week or two ago for Writers' Week at the Adelaide Festival and is apparently a sparklingly intelligent and entertaining man. Although the India part of his book really didn't do it for me, I do like the advice he gave aspiring writers in The Guardian last month. Among a swag of authors asked to contribute '10 Rules for Writing Fiction', Dyer's first point was particularly resonant:
Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job."
Sometimes I think my book will be so obscure no one could possibly be interested in reading it. Then I think, stuff it, write it anyway and at least my lovely family and friends will have to give it a go...:)


* A book tree (above). Not sure where this photo was taken but it proves the limitless possibilities of the humble book.

Enforcing the lore...

Sometimes sitting down, blocking out all other distractions and writing - just getting words on the page -  is such a Herculean task I think the only feasible answer is to be locked in a room and tied down to the chair with no option but to churn out the story.
It's not such a mad idea, when you consider that incarceration spawned some of the world's greatest literature...
You've heard of the English classic The Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan penned it in 1684 to keep himself occupied while doing penance in the big house for preaching without a licence. 
Prison time inspired fabled Italian public servant, Niccolo Machiavelli, to write The Prince in 1513. He dreamt up the plot while being wrongly jailed for launching a rebellion against the ruling Medici family of Florence.
And while in the slammer for being skint and unable to repay his mounting debts back in 1615, Miguel de Cervantes bided his time writing Don Quixote...which ended up being his ticket to financial freedom.
Perhaps the answer is to sentence myself to serving up a minimum number of sentences each day? That could work. Of course, a girl needs the right outfit to boot.... luckily for me prison stripes are in. 
Hold that thought. I'm off to the mall.

In which Rob tries to read...

The 'illustrated jocularity' of David Malki ! occasionally goes over my head, but if ever I could conjure up my "six people living or dead I'd invite to a dinner party" he'd be one of them.
Malki's cartoon Wondermark appears online and is updated twice weekly. And here's what makes it different. This splendid dude mines his collection of old books for 19th century woodcuts and engravings, from which he crafts his comics. 
Incidentally, the exclamation mark proceeding his name is intentional. 
"I spell my name with an exclamation point like so: David Malki ! It’s considered an honorific, and used in the same manner as “Jr” or “PhD”: there’s a single space before it. The exclamation point is not pronounced - though many have tried, often with hilarious results."
I give you, my friends, his take on why we read...

*Click on the image to enlarge

On thinking...

Something lovely I came across today, from Lord Byron:


But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

Sales by design...

I admit. When it comes to books I do sometimes...well, judge a book by its cover. All it takes is a certain je ne sais quoi - a deliciously embossed font, a velvety soft watermark, an intoxicating graphic - for me to get sucked in by its beauty and end up at the cash register.
Have you noticed that book covers seem to change randomly depending on where you pick them up? That's because different designs are chosen for the American and British markets and sometimes we in Australia end up with both options.
I found this comparison of UK and American book covers at a pretty cool online literary magazine - www.themillions.com. Check out the debate and see which ones you rate. It's a big deal when you consider that in sales terms, all the blood, sweat and tears an author invests in his or her manuscript can be slaughtered by a bad cover.
The UK version of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood gets my vote. I have no idea if the story's any good, but who cares - with its ripe colours and heavily laden vines enswirling the words - I'd buy it solely for the luscious artwork. Ka-ching!

Did you know "Santa" in Arabic means wart?

I find inspiration for writing in mining my treasure trove of newspaper clippings, random quotes scribbled on scraps, articles torn from magazines and other literary flotsam and jetsam I've tucked away over the years, thinking it might come in handy one day.
Tonight, while delving into some long-untouched boxes, I came across an article from the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine dated November 5, 2005.
I read somewhere recently, and I can't think where, but someone supposedly qualified in such matters said English has the most depth and versatility of any modern language. The implication being that the writer who writes in the English language has the most advantageous start.
I'm not sure about that.
In his Good Weekend article, Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words From Around the World, introduces turns of phrase in languages that make English look stolid.
There's a writing exercise right here in some of these gems. Let's see - can you craft a credible storyline using any of these words?:
nakhur (Persian) - meaning "a camel that won't give milk until her nostrils have been tickled"
areodjarekput (Inuit) - "to exchange wives for a few days only"
marilopates (Ancient Greek) - "a gulper of coal dust"
tsjuri-giri (Japanese) - "to try out a new sword on a passer-by"
zechpreller (German) - "someone who leaves without paying the bill"
neko-neko (Indonesian) - "one who has a creative idea which only makes things worse"
serein (French) - "the rain that falls from a cloudless sky"
pu'ukaula (Hawaiian) - "to set up one's wife as a stake in gambling"
scheissbedauern (German) - "the disappointment one feels when things don't turn out nearly as badly as one had hoped" (...bizarre!)
And from the "I can't believe someone made up a word for that" files...how's this one?!:
bakku-shan (Japanese) "a woman who seems pretty when seen from behind but not from the front"
Some country, somewhere, has got to have a male equivalent. Anyone??

Oh pun intended...!

I love a good pun. Especially when the recipient gets it first time around... for some reason they never seem quite as laugh-out-loud funny when you have to explain them. 
Anyhow, I found this list of Top 10 Puns on kid lit blog Alien Onion, and I especially like the bit where they say: "The ability to make and understand puns is considered to be the highest level of language development."
Check it out. Number 9 is pure gold. Haha! I defy you not to laugh out loud. 
Can you beat it?