The 95th Annual Academy Awards; or, the 95th Annual Academy Awards

And the award for Worst Pun, Unintentional Variety goes to, goes to, hold on, stupid envelope, son of a SCOTT ERIC KAUFMAN! for the following sentence he found while editing his chapter on Jack London:

This masculine posturing informs all of London’s early work because it is the counterpart, the individualist credo, behind the biological and social determinism against which London’s narrative always buck.

"Wow," Variety records Mr. Kaufman as saying.  "I mean, I knew that sentence clunked like a large body in a tiny European trunk, but I never even noticed that pun.  I know, I know, that sounds like false modesty, but do I have some time to thank some people?  Thirty seconds?  Alright, I want to thank Jack London, first and foremost, for the 4,831 novels and 23,917 short stories he wrote, without which I may've had a social life the last few years.  And I can't forget my dearest friend, TRAPPERKEEPER.  They may make fun of you when I log on to the network, but you've been the best friend a dissertator could ever hope for.  You've had your fair share of problems, believe me, I know, but in the end you've always kept my data safe, and for that I love you.  And HEY WAIT I'M NOT DONE YET, get your hands off of me, I haven't had a chance to thank my beautiful wi..."

Comments

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

And before anyone asks: Yes, my rough drafts always sound like they were written by a third grader with headspace to spare. There's a reason I revise. It's called "the beer-and-coffee method." You drink beer, write a lot. You wake up, drink coffee, revise a lot. It works. Can't you tell? Three years, two chapters: that's success, baby!

[Vance Maverick]

I've found three puns now, and I'm still not sure I've got the one you mean.

* "Posturing" "informs" (a clash of metaphors)

* The narrative "buck[s]" against the "masculine posturing" (cf. Ulysses, "Redheaded women buck like goats")

* "Buck" used as a verb, with a studied lack of reference to Call of the Wild.

Help us out here....

[Vance Maverick]

And I'm not sure if I'm reading right, but you seem to be imagining determinism in a sort of sandwich, with an individualist credo behind it and a narrative in front.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Vance, you're being far too intelligent about this. You obviously aren't familiar enough with the sort of juvenile literature seventh grade English teachers peddle to their unsuspecting students: Buck's the name of the dog in The Call of the Wild who doesn't read newspapers and can't think but someone manages to carry a two-hundred-fifty page narrative on his shoulders. (The Ulysses pun, I must admit, is awesome, and far better than the lame one I accepted the award for. Then again, I accepted it on account of its lameness, so yours wouldn't have qualified anyway. All of which is a testament to your taste. As I intimated in my acceptance speech, no one should have to read as much London as I have...so long as they're not on the row, I suppose.)

To address your other point, I'll elaborate on my theory of determinism later in the week, since it's come up both here and on the Valve. (I'd do it even if it came up here, mind you, but it's now an imperative. That, and if I don't work through it I'll never finish this friggin' chapter. Seriously though, I don't consider determinism a sandwich, because if the credo's the top and the narrative the bottom, that'd make the determinism the meat; whereas I think the determinism the bread and the contingency the butter, mayo, lettuce, cold cuts you choose to slap between it. Sure, the bread's determined, but it don't determine what's slapped inside it, no? (Call that the worst definition ever, but I'm suffering from stress-induced insomnia and am, at this point, more than a little delirious. But, pathetic as that answer may sound, it is earnest...and to be frank, I'm incapable of saying whethter that's a good or bad thing at this point. To sleep!

[Vance Maverick]

Here, let me close that parenthesis.)

I'm afraid I wasn't really smart enough to miss the pun you meant -- but I'm a bad enough writer that you couldn't deduce that from my third point.

I've been thinking about offering unsolicited advice on the way that sentence is written. But it sounds as though the unclarity of the relationships between the three main entities (posturing = credo / determinism / narrative) is not so much a syntactic problem as a thematic one, which you're working on right now. So good luck, and do get some sleep.