Let’s have a politically incorrect Booker . . .
Humphrys wages war on illiteracy . . .
the muted Thunderer
OF COURSE we all know now that the Booker was won by Alan Hollinghurst
with The Line of Beauty and even the chattering classes who
seldom read a book are saying how wonderful and original it is.
It’s the first gay book to win for 36 years. Wow! It decries the
Thatcher years! Wow again! He read English and taught it at Oxford. He likes
Wagner! Gosh! The author is friends with Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate,
whom he thanked at the ceremony. Triple wow. A real live literary lion.
It’s enough to make a cat laugh but the book is not enough to
entertain me.
I don’t know and don’t really care about an author’s sexual proclivities.
Homosexual or heterosexual, asexual, bi-sexual, kind to children and small
animals or a wife-beater and a slob. Neither do I care if he or she is
white, brown, black, yellow or green. Is teetotal or a drunkard. Sips herbal
tea or mainlines cocaine.
I pick up a book and ask two questions.
Can the author write?
Has he or she got something worthwhile to say?
As far as Hollinghurst is concerned the answer to the first question is
yes. The manipulation and formation of words is fine.
Has he got anything new or worthwhile to say that’s not been better said
elsewhere? No.
It’s a tired parable of an era half forgotten, eclipsed by an even worse
one.
Not that the remaining short-listed titles were much to write home about.
I thought Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor was a passable contender,
politically correct in the right places as it took the period post-
apartheid and firmly reminded us that white South Africans were the baddies
and most Cape Coloureds and Blacks saintly souls. A sort of Wilbur Smith
overlaid with political jam to the detriment of the action.
As for Colm Toibin’s The Master, a novel based on the life
of Henry James: Why? If I want to know something about the great Henry I
read his books or tackle the five volume biography.
* * *
LOOKING After the Queen’s English is a full-time job and it’s good to see
that John Humphrys of Radio 4’s Today programme is joining the
battle. He relates the general decline in standards with misplaced
apostrophes and dangling subordinate clauses as a sign of our crumbling
civilisation.
Who would argue with him?
You don’t have to go across the Atlantic to find that the language of
Shakespeare can be mangled into gibberish.
Daily Humphrys confronts politicians, captains of industry, PR
spokespeople for Quangos and lobbyists for single issue causes who disappear
in a cloud of clichés and jargon.
Raft of options, range of opportunities, lessons will be learned, a line
will be drawn in the sand . . . the list is endless. Absolutely and
categorically have now become meaningless.
Humphrys’s book, Lost for Words, should be bought by every
grandparent in the land for today’s 10 and 11-year-olds. It’s the least we
can do in this losing battle.
Even Terence Blacker, who reviewed the book favourably, thought that Jay
McInerney’s opening to his novel, Story of My Life, was one of
the best opening lines of modern fiction. It reads: "I’m like, what is
this shit?"
I wouldn’t put it in the top 100. And not because I’m a stranger to bad
language.
Humphrys, like many other first-class broadcasters, Tom Mangold, Keith
Graves and Michael Buerk, learned his trade in the harsh world of
newspapers. I’d like to think there were successors coming through but I am
not so sure.
Possibly the worst users are the people, presumably with a degree in
media studies, who draft job advertisements for the quality press. Try this
one from the Guardian:
We are looking for a self-motivated marketing professional to play a key
role in developing and implementing strategic marketing and audience
development campaigns to ensure the attainment of visitor targets and
increase the Museum’s profile as a key regional cultural organisation.
And this is a job advertisement for the Manchester Museum. Translation:
We want somebody with marketing experience to publicise the museum.
* * *
DO YOU like the compact version of The Times? Or do you think the
old Thunderer is somehow devalued by going tabloid?
What may be good for the Mail and Express, even for the
Independent, doesn’t suit this alleged paper of record.
I know the financial implications: a page of advertising uses only half
the amount of newsprint therefore Mr Murdoch enhances his profit . . . it’s
easier to handle . . . young people like it . . . women like it. Allegedly.
Of course the fact that the circulation has plummeted from 792,000 seven
years ago to its current 661,000 has, I suppose, nothing to do with the
quality of content. It will be interesting to see the circulation figures in
six months’ time.
