Yes, there are lessons here for fiction writers, but I won’t pretend my motivation is merely didactic. Truth is, I’ve got a wicked hangover because the other day, along with everybody else in the world, I ingested an unseemly mass of Mark Sanford’s soggy emails, overdosing to the point where I started to feel sick. I even had to skip lunch.
Kidding aside, bad writing can be a potent irritant–especially that form of bad writing in which jarring shifts of tone and diction mar prose intended to be earnest and heartfelt. If the Gov were taking my 101 and turned in these emails, I guarantee you he would get back at least a few sharp comments on appropriate word choice and consistency of expression.
But you know…I’ve seen worse. To be truthful, Gov. Sanford is actually on the upper curve of those business and government types who try their hand at poetry or any form of prose that’s heavily wrought.
“Do you really comprehend how beautiful your smile is? Have you been told lately how warm your eyes are and how they softly glow with the special nature of your soul?”
That’s not bad.
Unfortunately, as you keep reading, it becomes like watching a kid who just learned to ride his bicycle: he may coast smoothly for a stretch, but inevitably there’s a wobble.
“How in the world this lightning strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure…” Metaphors, as T.S. Eliot famously pointed out, rest on an “objective correlative.” Very simply, that just means a metaphor has to make sense on its literal level. Lightning strikes don’t sneak up. Sorry, they just don’t.
He also suffers a bit from “public-sector-itis,” marked by traces of professional language, the jargon of the corporate enterprise or the public service sector.
“…this soul-mate feel I alluded to is real.” What’s wrong with “soul-mate feel?” He overlooks the fact that feel, used this way, comes straight from the jargon phrase “look and feel”– as in “that naugahide has the look and feel of real leather.” It originated in marketing, but he’s imported it into a distinctly non-marketing context. Computer says “no.”
“I better stop now least (sic) this really sound like the Thornbirds–wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s arms.” Guess which word makes my teeth jangle and my toes curl.
“This is ground I’ve never certainly never (sic) covered before–so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out, please let me know…” Pearls of wisdom. Hmm. A catchy metaphor, nice image, apt, clever–I wonder where I’ve heard it before. (Hint: EVERYWHERE. It’s a cliche.)
And then there’s this one–the one that was quoted in the media more than all the others put together: “I could digress and say that…I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details.”
Ladies and gentlemen, imagine, if you will, Shakespeare having written, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day–but, hey, that would be going into the meteorological details.”
On a radio talk show, a female caller, identifying herself as “a romantic,” suggested that we cut poor Gov. Sandford some slack “because he’s such a great writer.”
I’m sorry, an idea like that, unchallenged, is simply a menace to public health.
But the woman implicitly raises a separate question I don’t have the space to consider here; so I’ll just ask it:
Bearing in mind that Gov. Sandford, a social conservative who pilloried Bill Clinton, not only played around, but flew off to Argentina on his State’s dime, and lied to everyone, including his own staff, to cover his rear–and assuming for argument’s sake that the emails were brilliantly written, Pulizer quality… is writing well an excuse for sociopathic misdeeds?
I think I’ve suggested what my answer might be. What’s yours?
{ 1 trackback }