What’s Cooking Now

Currently I am reading five books in the evenings, each a different type form the others. I want to talk a bit about one of them, one for writers. This book has been on my shelves for a few years, waiting its turn. How I wish it had been number one in the line-up, for it is one of the best books on writing that I’ve run across. It’s not for the beginning writer, one that still needs work on dialogue, paragraphing, other mechanics, etc., but for one who has mastered all those elements of writing. This author, Philip Gerard, takes up such topics as aesthetic distance, didacticism, and persuasion of continuity. And they make all the difference. I most strongly recommend this source: Writing a Book that Makes a Difference. I don’t intend to lend my copy or donate it to anyone, but reread it for inspiration.

While reading the chapter that explained this material, I kept thinking of the novel I was also reading, A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré. Without any question here is an author who knows all about aesthetic distance and the other eighteen “rules” governing literary art. My previously mentioning Le Carré is a genius with words now rests more firmly on that pedestal, for his work embodies all these topics Gerard’s book proclaims. I wonder which came first, these rules or Le Carré. He wasn’t the first to write with such skill, of course, but whoever originated the eighteen rules did so by observing what made written words a masterpiece.

Here are three gems from Le Carré’s TMWM: “. . . a beggar with attitude;” “. . . throes of refurbishing [an apartment]; “. . . made herself lists about the lists she was going to make.” And this cleverness is just the whipped cream to the delight of the eighteen rules.

I strongly recommend both these books for writers. Read them together for good illustration of what the one is saying about the other—in both directions.

♥