Great literature?

[cheerful_deviant]

Personally I believe that some ideas are best left unexplored...

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The 223-page novel "The Train From Nowhere," by a French writer using the name Michel Thaler, is reported to be the first novel in history with no verbs, and its May publication was met with damning reviews. "Thaler" has called the verb "like a weed in a field of flowers" and his book a "revolution in the history of literature," that it "is to literature what the great Dada and Surrealist movements were to art." Critics noted the book's lack of action, in that it consists only of, according to London's Daily Telegraph, "lengthy passages filled with florid adjectives in a series of vitriolic portraits of dislikable passengers on a train." [Daily Telegraph, 5-9-04]

 

[thenry]

The book made a splash when it came out and thankfully disappeared forever. I understand that in its original French the concept isn't as disconcerting.

Basically, the entire novel happens within a single moment, just before a train robbery begins. (At least in the English translation) A lot of the verblessness are tricks used in spoken dictation, like:

There, a thin man with a dog, Rover, a black mutt of questionable proportions, and a trenchcoat with dainty-legged mouse in its pocket, across from the woman of his idle dreams of unending domestic humdrum, subordinate descriptive clause continues.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Personally I believe that some ideas are best left unexplored...

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The 223-page novel "The Train From Nowhere," by a French writer using the name Michel Thaler, is reported to be the first novel in history with no verbs, and its May publication was met with damning reviews. "Thaler" has called the verb "like a weed in a field of flowers" and his book a "revolution in the history of literature," that it "is to literature what the great Dada and Surrealist movements were to art." Critics noted the book's lack of action, in that it consists only of, according to London's Daily Telegraph, "lengthy passages filled with florid adjectives in a series of vitriolic portraits of dislikable passengers on a train." [Daily Telegraph, 5-9-04]

This sounds really assinine. Personally I don't think you could write anything that anybody would want to read without using verbs. You can't have sentences without verbs, at least not in English.

Actuallym, there are verbsw in the passage but they are understood. That is, the person reading the passage will put them in in order to make any sense of it.

 

[Guest]

Michel Thale

WaNkEr.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Those wacky French.

Back when I was in school, the hot French literary form consisted of extremely painstaking and objective detailed descriptions of things and actions, totally devoid of subjective judgment or analysis. I can't remember the name of the movement, but its main proponent was Alain Robbe-Grillet.

I read a story of his about a man who forgets to put on deodorant when he gets dressed in the morning and so has to go home and put it on without getting undressed. It was like thirty or forty pages of a guy reaching around inside his shirt.

Timeless.

---Zoot

 

[amicus]

Sorry guys I just can't resist....

The description of the novel and the other reference confirms my earlier conclusion that Europeans spend far too much time contemplating their collective navels.

the devil made me do it...(Hey, Mab...read your interview some where on a thread I followed a few days ago...nice job!)


amicus...

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Personally I believe that some ideas are best left unexplored...

============================================

The 223-page novel "The Train From Nowhere," by a French writer using the name Michel Thaler, is reported to be the first novel in history with no verbs, and its May publication was met with damning reviews. "Thaler" has called the verb "like a weed in a field of flowers" and his book a "revolution in the history of literature," that it "is to literature what the great Dada and Surrealist movements were to art." Critics noted the book's lack of action, in that it consists only of, according to London's Daily Telegraph, "lengthy passages filled with florid adjectives in a series of vitriolic portraits of dislikable passengers on a train." [Daily Telegraph, 5-9-04]

Sounds like a marketing technique that lacks any kind of actual effort behind it. Is it easy to write a novel without any verbs? No, I'm certian it's not. But why do it, unless to sell the novel on its... well, novelties?

I'll abridge that: Failed writer's attempt at a publicity stunt for latest work.

 

[shereads]

What's the big deal? Some of my favorite books contain few, if any, French verbs.

 

[Guest]

I haven't much interest in the pseudonymous Frenchman's 'novel', but I thought I'd add this info from Wikiverse. There are many forms of "constrained writing" that I suspect many here have used (poetry with a rhyme scheme is constrained, as are haiku, or heroic couplets). I daresay erotica is a form of constrained writing (I see many posts where authors complain about 'getting to' the sex).

As for the French, well, they made a cult of Jerry Lewis.

Perdita

(The url above has links for many of the terms below.)
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Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern.

The most common constrained forms of writing are strict restrictions in vocabulary, e.g. Basic English, E-Prime, defining vocabulary for dictionaries, and other limited vocabularies for teaching English as a Second Language or to children. This is not generally what is meant by 'constrained writing' in the literary sense, which is motivated by more aesthetic concerns. For example:

- a letter (commonly e or o) is outlawed, making a lipogram;
- palindromes, such as the word "radar," read the same both ways;
- alliterativess, in which every word must start with the same letter (or subset of letters; see Alphabetical Africa)
acrostics;
- reverse-lipograms (each word must contain a particular letter);
- Ander-Saxon;
- anagrams;
- aleatory (where the reader supplies a random input);
- Haiku, Japanese poem

 

[gauchecritic]

Sorry guys I just can't resist....

The description of the novel and the other reference confirms my earlier conclusion that Europeans spend far too much time contemplating their collective navels.

amicus...

As in life, we in Europe have done macho and are through with it now that we've grown up.

Gauche

 

[Quiet_Cool]

As in life, we in Europe have done macho and are through with it now that we've grown up.

Gauche

I'm not European, but well said...

I'm not sure if it addresses what amicus said, becaue I don't quite know what he said, the point is a good one.

 

[Guest]

What's the big deal? Some of my favorite books contain few, if any, French verbs.

LOL
Sher, you just made my day. Ta.

 

[Liar]

Sorry guys I just can't resist....

The description of the novel and the other reference confirms my earlier conclusion that Europeans spend far too much time contemplating their collective navels.

Did you just generalize me into the same group as a verbally challenged frenchman? Ew, that's...gross.

#L

 

[Guest]

Putting all of Europe into one group is as silly as saying all Americans are (fill in the blank), given that the label should include Canadians, Mexicans and other South/Latin Americans.

Among many reasons, my European friends are unique due to their homeland and language, and even that might be divided by the compass.

Amicus, what a dullard.

Perdita

 

[amicus]

You make a good point, Gauche...and may very well be right...

however...bear with me a moment...

Instead of Macho...for the sake of my comments, I would use 'Masculine'...

The world has changed...and will change even more unless we face some global catastrophe.

Gender roles have become less defined in the past hundred years.

A great many science fiction writers..when looking forward into the future and projecting an 'ideal' society...somewhat like 'thebullet'...see an era of peace and tranquility and equality that seems to eliminate the innate masculine imperative for aggression and conquest.

That may well be the future and I may well represent a dying breed of 'dinosaurs' as I have been lovingly referred to.

In the United States and I surmise, much of Western Europe, physical labor...menial jobs requiring strength and endurance are on the wane. Mechanical devices even robots are replacing human bodies as the labor force...or so it seems to me.

Obesity seems to affect one in three Americans...it may be the same in Europe...as less physical activity is required to gain ones sustenance.

The physical human critter has not changed much...we have bones and muscle tissue that must be fed and exercised lest they degenerate...a large problem in space travel.

To be concise...as much as I can...it appears that the conventional nature of the human male is no longer in great demand and will become even less so as time marches on.

I for one, would gladly migrate to Mars or any other nearby planet that was habitable and happily leave this increasingly feminist world to those who find succor in a kinder and gentler equality based world.

Transitions seldom proceed peacefully and I muse about how this transition will play out.

Perhaps an 'extinction level event' ELE will occur, or the Mongol hordes of Manchuria will descend and set us back a few hundred years.

If there were a Creator, surely she finds humor in our dilemma.


amicus...

 

[BlackShanglan]

Opinions on Himself are still a bit divided, but given his popularity/reputation in some circles, it seems fitting to mention that Mr. Joyce was capable of going a few good pages without feeling the need of a verb. The "Shem the Penman" section of Finnegan's Wake springs most immediately to mind.

That which sounds pointlessly absurd may very well be - and may yet have value. I will defend, for instance, Beckett's three speakers stuffed in jars for an entire play against any and all comers.

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

Bravo, Shanglan. I decided not to bring up these two giants of English. I'm more a Beckett woman but I do have a tenderness for Gretta, Molly and Anna Livia.

along the... Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

Another good reason to avoid 'literature'.

Just tell me a good story. Make it fun, sad, enlightening, uplifting, amusing, and interesting.

Otherwise, I don't care what a 'good writer' the authour is.

And my blood pressure has improved enormously since I put 'friend' on my ignore list.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Just tell me a good story. Make it fun, sad, enlightening, uplifting, amusing, and interesting.

Otherwise, I don't care what a 'good writer' the authour is.

I'm quite curious to know how one does the former without being the latter.

Shanglan

 

[rgraham666]

I'm quite curious to know how one does the former without being the latter.

Shanglan

Now that I think about it, so do I.

I think I should have made a distinction between the authour's opinion of his ability and his readership's opinion.

I believe that there is an inverse relationship between a person's ability and their ego.

 

[cantdog]

Bad news for me, then. I got tons of ego.

 

[gauchecritic]

Bad news for me, then. I got tons of ego.

I have so much I often ask Cant to carry some of it for me.

Gauche

 

[Guest]

I have so much I often ask Cant to carry some of it for me.

Huge larf from me, Gauche. That explains a lot.

Perdita