Perfect Punctuation
Dear White People
"[S]ometimes, one of the best ways to better understand racism is to just pick up a book." As part of a recent tweet about his availability for racial consultation, Colson Whitehead recommended an evergreen Huffington Post piece entitled "16 Books About Race That Every White Person Should Read", a list that includes Claudia Rankine's Citizen, T. Geronimo Johnson's Welcome to Braggsville, and The Sellout by Paul Beatty, which we reviewed here. We hope he's collecting referral fees.
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And So It Goes
Before he died, Kurt Vonnegut gave the go-ahead that has allowed Charles Shields to construct And So It Goes, an incisive, gossipy page-turner of a biography, even if it’s hard to tell just how authorized this book really is.
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Stories in Verse
In 2010, the poet Tarfia Faizullah traveled to Bangladesh to speak with the survivors of the 1971 Liberation War. Eventually, she wrote a poetry collection about those interviews, which went on to win the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award. At The Paris Review Daily, Sean Carman interviews Faizullah.
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Houellebecq Wins France’s Top Literary Award
Controversial writer Michel Houellebecq finally wins France's top literary award, the Goncourt Prize, for The Map and the Territory (published in French last September).
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Shepard’s Final Word
"He wrote the first drafts by hand, and when that became too difficult, dictated sections of the book into a tape recorder." Before his death in July, playwright and actor Sam Shepard wrote a novel called Spy of the First Person, which is forthcoming from Knopf in December. From our archives, a list of writers who also act.
The Last Interview
Recommended Listening: Fresh Air on Melville House’s Last Interview series with Ernest Hemingway, Nora Ephron, and Philip K. Dick. For more interviews, check out who The Millions has interviewed recently.
Punctuation marks have unique personalities, and if they formed a large dysfunctional family, forced to gather together for some sort of mandatory event would be:
a.) Parenthese: Passive aggressive, snipey aunt who throws cold water over everyone’s good news with stink bombs of insults surrounded by insincerely-voiced congratulations.
b.) Em-dash: Uncle returned from extended tour of English-teaching in Thailand. Furtive eyes, caught kicking the cat in the pantry when his brandy runs out and blizzard prevents run to “packie” for more.
c.) Ellipses: Cousin with light brown hair, light brown clothes, light brown eyes. No one can ever remember her name. Has never been able to complete a whole sentence at dinnertime without someone else interrupting her.
d.) Colon: Grandfather, 42 year employee of Government Printing Office, everything he says is an official-sounding pronouncement about weather. Is actually recalling the 1978 Blizzard and thinks it is still 1978. Found wearing several Red Sox baseball caps at the same time and tinkering with the furnace in an alarming manner.
e.) Period: Father, 26 year employee of Government Printing Office, all pronouncements are official-sounding. With add additional period and become a colon by 2035.
Punctuation Alert!
Today (12/4/2014) the Washington Post reviewed “Suspended Sentences – Three Novellas” by Patrick Modiano. The first, “Afterimages,” describes an odd, furtive character who disappears one day without a trace:
“As the narrator remarks, ‘Of all the punctuation marks, he told me, ellipses were his favorite.”
Moe Murph
Still Favors the Em-dash for Characterization
Whoa, Moe Murph — Packie? Red Sox caps? Blizzard of 1978? Furnace??? I hear the siren call of the Bay State. If you ah not from they-ah, I am wicked impressed with the authenticity of yaw voice. A tad dispirited that I still don’t know what an em-dash is (perhaps one should have been used above?) but loved your dysfunctional family, especially the ellipses . . .now get outta he-ah . . .
@priskill
Ha Ha… yes, I am from Boston. This is not quite “my” family, but a couple of the bits and pieces fit, including my poor grandfather and his furnace fiddling and multiple hat wearing at the end of his life. Also, our entire family does tend to all speak at the same time and we do have one cousin who never can get a word in edgewise. And she is quite “beige” in affect. :)
The uncle, dad, and the aunt are bits and pieces cobbled together from my fetid swamp of a brain…
If you want to read some wonderful examples of Em-dash, read the poetry of Emily Dickinson! The Em-dash creates a wonderful sense of motion and ease.
(I laughed out loud at the Modiano review today!)
Best Regards, Moe Murph
@Moe Murph Well, I loved it (that poor and beige cousin!) and thank you for clarifying things — I thought the Belle of Am’erstt just used plain old dashes — I’m a big dasher, myself, but mostly from indecision regarding commas and such — as always, you entertain and elucidat, MM!
@priskill
Just a bit more elucidatin’…..
My personal favorite for grammar guides is “The Deluxe Transitive Grammar: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed” – Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Pantheon; Revised Edition – 8/10/1993).
The title alone makes it awesome, but the contents are wonderful as well.
Moe Murph
Oh Bosh! Correct Title:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed”
@Moe Murph — I am all of the above! I, E, & D — I will look for this — vampires and serial commas in the same title ! Thank you, MM!