Every welcome breeze
My opinion of people has just shot up. I thought I’d be the only one to say “Ew he thinks he’s doing Fine Writing,” but on the contrary, most people out of a large number said so, and more wittily. I hate hate hate wannabe Fine Writing except from geniuses.
Along with the bogus Fine Writing of course there’s the Don’t you wish you could have a nice vaycay in Cyprus? along with the Get me I’m writing, I’m a writer, you thought I was just a QC but I’m also a writer.
Just then a woman appeared with her small son, eyeing the laden tree. He reached the higher fruit from atop her shoulders, giggling. This feature of his day — jolly on Mom.
(apologies, irresistable) :P
I was reminded of the second paragraph of Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly.
“It is after lunch (omelette, vichy, peaches) on a sultry day. Here is the plane tree with the table underneath it; a gramophone is playing in the next room. I always try to write in the afternoon. I have just enough Irish blood to be afraid of the Irish temperament.”
This got him a lot of stick for its fine writing and showing off. Something always jars when an Englishperson goes to somewhere hot – south of France, Cyprus, Spain – and starts scene setting. Connolly did have an ear for prose and wrote very good parodies of other writers’ excesses of style and substance, also a fair amount of self-awareness. I doubt Maugham has such redeeming qualities.
Also, I have a rosemary bush, and I doubt if I dropped fruit through it, that they would pick up the aroma.
Also Maugham:
I just feel we should also take his earlier, grittier work into consideration when judging his literary merits.
What a perfect pairing, KBP, thanks!
It’s interesting that Connolly’s fine writing is vastly less pretentious than Jolly’s. Still annoying, but it nicely underlines how off the charts Jolly’s post-gritty work is.
The movie of this would be directed by Tarantino, or possibly Scorsese. The Cypriot piece, with its warmer, relaxed setting, lower body count, and fewer swears, would be more in the Merchant-Ivory direction.
What with the piss-taking of JM and wags identifying as Billy Bragg, Twitter has been a merry place the last couple of days.
Pompous sexist men=comedy gold [some of the time].