Pretty Pretentious

I wish critics and reviewers would learn the difference between the words 'pretentious', 'pompous' and 'grandiose'. They are not interchangeable terms.

Some of Dylan Thomas's poetry is pretentious -- in other words it pretends to have a meaning that it doesn't actually possess. Whether Dylan Thomas himself was pretentious is a different question. It could be that he simply never intended for those particular poems to have a meaning, in which case they function more as music than conventional poetry. He was certainly never pompous or grandiose; and neither was his poetry.

I remember reading the entry on William Gaddis in an encyclopedia of literature and finding the absurd comment that his work is 'possibly pretentious'. But what is it possibly pretending to be? Ambitious? But it is ambitious. Insightful? But it is insightful. Elegantly written? But it is elegantly written. If a writer's work is truly what it claims to be, then it can't be possibly pretentious (or even definitely pretentious), no matter how complex or difficult it might be...

Carlos Castaneda was pretentious. He pretended to be something he wasn't, namely a mystic with access to a deeper reality; but he wasn't pompous or grandiose. Khalil Gibran was both pretentious and pompous: his pseudo-Nietzschean declarations on morality, beauty and death are carefully engineered to give the impression of an enormous wisdom that simply isn't there. So much for his writing; his drawings are genuinely fine.

Kingsley Amis was pompous, but not pretentious or grandiose. His offensive conservatism never pretended to be anything other than what it was, and his pomposity was always provincial. Contrast him with Leo Tolstoy, who was grandiose in an extreme degree, but absoluely never pretentious or pompous. In such a case 'grandiose' should be a term of respect.

John Barth is pompous. He's also grandiose and arrogant. But he's never pretentious. He never pretends to be a genius -- he is a genius. The same is true for Nabokov. Nabokov was arrogant because he claimed to be better than other writers, but his work really is better than the work of (most) other writers, so by no fair means can he ever be called pretentious.

Georges Perec, on the other hand, was neither pretentious, pompous nor grandiose. Although it has the most grandiose title of all, his novel Life: a User's Manual is focussed on lives rather than Life. Neither was Perec arrogant. A smartass is what Perec was: a glorious one. It must be a bitter pill to swallow, but the blunt truth is that some writers truly are more clever than all critics; and sometimes even more clever than most readers.

Critics, please get your insults right!

Three New Chaps

Not real chaps (human males) but chapbooks. In other words, slim pamphlets containing fiction. These three chapbooks are called Madonna Park, Plutonian Parodies and The Fanny Fables and they can be ordered from The Penny Dreadful Company at various places on that website...

Madonna Park contains six stories ('Big Game', 'Three Friends', 'The Big Lick', 'Madonna Park', 'Suttee and Sweep' and 'The Gun Fight'); Plutonian Parodies contains three parodies ('Poe Pie', 'The Lollipop God is Dead' and 'The Sun Trap'); and The Fanny Fables contains six fables ('Fanny is Famished', 'The Furry Godmother', 'Petal Put the Kelly On', 'Fanny of the Apes', 'Knobheads and Dipsticks' and 'Fanny of the Opera'). I like 'em. You might too!

If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Gums!

My new novel is generally bigger than Swansea Marina... but only if you don't believe in perspective!

A One-Sentence Story

Sloping Off

I was instructed to measure the angles of all the gradients of all the foothills and peaks of an entire mountain range, but I went home instead.

Dreamcatcher

Adele's allotment is looking more amazing with every week that passes. Here's the dreamcatcher she made to protect her beans, beetroot, peas and herbs from nightmares. Vegetables that have nightmares don't taste as good -- that's a little known fact I made up just now. I have always been conservative when it comes to food (never to politics) but Adele has persuaded me to start eating flowers. Not daffodils and tulips but edible flowers: borage, marigolds and other things that look like daisies but aren't. Back in February this plot of land was an overgrown mess but now it's a lush brightly-coloured paradise of organic food. Gardening is an art form no less creative than music or literature and Adele has proved this through sheer hard work and enthusiasm!

Herb Spiral

Yesterday I went to visit Adele's allotment for the first time in many weeks. The change astounded me. The place is bursting with life! Here's a photo of the herb spiral she constructed fairly recently. As well as being aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it's a practical way of growing herbs because it provides a large variety of different conditions in a very small space. Different herbs with different requirements can be planted at different locations on the spiral, enabling drainage and received sunlight to be controlled for the maximum benefit of the individual plants.

Salad Days

Because Adele is hugely talented as well as lovely, she has been growing amazing vegetables on her allotment and has given me a selection for my daily salads. So amazingly tasty is her produce (vastly superior to the stuff I buy in supermarkets) that my tastebuds are dancing with delight! Here's a photo of the salad I had last night, complete with Adele's amazingly spicy rocket (she's the best rocket engineer since Sergei Korolev helped the Russians send the first man into space!)