What If I Just Call Him Jack?

Sunday, 20 May 2007

What If I Just Call Him Jack?

A sentence discovered during latest re-re-re-revision of the London chapter:

In a recently discovered essay London wrote upon returning from London ...

Checking the tracked changes, I discover I'd already corrected this sentence, which earlier read:

In a recently discovered essay he wrote upon returning from London, London ...

Looking a little more carefully at the tracked changes, I learn the above was itself a revision:

In a recently discovered essay London wrote upon returning from England ...

I can see why I changed it to something dreadful and ungainly: England is not nearly specific enough. Had to specify London, lest someone get the impression he frolicked with other lily-white folk in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The lesson? No more arumfartzen with tracked changes. A writer need never be reminded that his present blockheadedness is but an extension of his past.

May 20, 2007 4:33:34 PM | Academia, Dissertation, Historicism, Jack London, Literary Theory, Literature

11 Comments

The lesson?

How about the dangers of too much specificity? Is it important to your argument that the essay turned up recently or that London was in London? If you don't want to kill the info, just shuffle off the fun but unnecessary bits to a footnote.

There might not be anything wrong with "London wrote in an essay, 'blah.'"

Posted by: Karl Steel | Sunday, 20 May 2007 at 06:50 PM

No, go in the other direction. That will serve as an easy test of whether anyone is reading these chapters.

"In a recently discovered minor essay London wrote upon returning from the City of London in London -- not Greater London (geographically; no connection with "greater" vs "minor" essays is meant) -- London discoursed upon one of his favorite meals, the London Broil (not to be confused with Swanson's dinner).

Now if you could only determine that he'd been influenced by Blake's London in some way during this trip...

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Sunday, 20 May 2007 at 07:27 PM

Now if you could only determine that he'd been influenced by Blake's London in some way during this trip...

If only he'd bought a copy while he was over there we'd have London's London Blake's London for the archives now.

Posted by: peter ramus | Sunday, 20 May 2007 at 08:36 PM

If a gecko crawled over that, it would be a demonstration of London's London Blake's London London forces.

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Sunday, 20 May 2007 at 09:39 PM

At least you didn't try to go to Morrow....

Posted by: Jonathan Dresner | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 01:47 AM

On an obliquely related literary matter: my experience has taught me that it's very hard to lecture on the science fiction of Philip K Dick without saying the word dick a great deal, and in a variety of unfortunate and titterworthy locutions.

Posted by: Adam Roberts | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 06:07 AM

That's why everyone calls him PKD.

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 07:30 AM

PKD. Always makes me think of this.

Maybe we should just call him Horselover Fat.

Posted by: Adam Roberts | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 08:20 AM

This reminds me of the time I had to edit a review featuring both Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Walter Raleigh. I fixed matters by using "Ralegh" for Raleigh #1--or so I thought, until the U of C press got their hands on the review & tried standardizing the spellings. (Me: "No! Stet! Alternate spelling! Not the same Raleigh!")

Posted by: Miriam | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 01:47 PM

i just finished a paper on Keith Jarrett and at some point during the writing process i determined that i was always going to refer to him as Keith Jarrett never just Jarrett. if this is falls within acceptable usage then it seems that always using Jack London might eliminate some of your linguistic difficulties. Thoughts?

Posted by: colin | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 03:48 PM

Or you could, following my suggestion, refer to him as JGL, and then following Adam's kind of sound-association, start referring to him as Jingle.

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Monday, 21 May 2007 at 05:35 PM

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Even Atheists Deserve Wry Epitaphs Courtesy of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, mine will be: Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo. [I was not, I was, I am not, I don't care.]

Tom & Joe, This is How You Read a Poem Tom and Joe decided to challenge Ann Althouse to a reading competition, to which I can only say: "Unwise, my friends, unwise." Ann Althouse is a lawyer. You guys are graduate students. Moreover, you two are playing on her turf. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer, not a graduate student. Not that you could take her on yours, mind you. See, for example, her magisterial display of intertextual prowess, in which she pairs an episode of The Sopranos with the most literal poem in human history, W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming": You need to study the poem as you rewatch the episode. It's not enought to say "Things fall apart ... Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," so there's going to be an all-out war between Tony and Phil. Or "somewhere in sands of the desert ... what rough beast ... Slouches towards Bethlehem," so all that talk about the Mideast and terrorism is going to have to be part of the series dénouement. There must be endless depths there. You're just getting started. Perhaps Tony will find his humanity (or is he the "rough beast"?). He gives an expensive watch to Carmela, which is typical for him, but what was that inscription? He tries to connect with the guys talking about his peyote visions, but he fails. He tells Phil he wants to talk to him "on a human level." Which also fails. He saves his son from drowning. ("blood-dimmed tide... innocence is drowned.") The water imagery from last week. He cradles the son he saves. Mother imagery from last week. He starts saying "poor you," the way his own mother Livia did. More mother references. Before saving his son from drowning, he eats the "Lincoln log" food Carmela made to try cheer up A.J. Imagery carried over from last week: mother, phallus, assassinated President. Consider yourself pre-schooled. Let me walk you dolts through this brilliance one brilliant sentence at a brilliant time: You need to study the poem as you rewatch the episode ... ... with a law degree in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. It's not enough to say "Things fall apart ... Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," so there's going to be an all-out war between Tony and Phil. Because Tony and Phil are "the world," like in the poem you studiously studied, in which "things fall apart" and on which "anarchy is loosed." (Ann's absolutely right to ignore the "mere." It's a useless poetry word poets throw in when they need an extra beat.) Or "somewhere in sands of the desert ... what rough beast ... Slouches towards Bethlehem," so all that talk about the Mideast and terrorism is going to have to be part of the series dénouement. Deserts and Bethlehem are both in the Middle East. (So is the Spiritus Mundi, for that matter.) There must be endless depths there. Word. You're just getting started. No, Ann, you are. I but bask in your reflected glory. Perhaps...