The press
Cloth ear department
Paul Johnson
Apet theory of mine is that an obses- sive interest in politics and bad prose go together: the one produces the other. Journalists who think politics are the be-all and end-all of existence are unlikely to write good English, and when a magazine reflects this view it soon goes downhill. One example is my old paper, the New Statesman, which from the Thirties to the Sixties produced some of the best writing in the English language, and is now an unreadable Hard Left tract. Another ex- ample, I fear, is the New Yorker, once the most venerated of all American weeklies, with a unique place in the affections of those devoted to that dying art-form, the short story. It is true the New Yorker was open to the accusation that it over-edited all but the most august contributors, and that in consequence its prose had a certain homogenised flavour. All the same, its standards were high and there were few writers who did not aspire to appear in it.
One of the delights of the old New Yorker was its opening 'Talk of the Town' section, which provided a witty commen- tary on what was going on in New York. It was both graceful and informative, and I often recommended it to young journalists: here, I said, was gossip at its best, light- hearted, unmalicious and illuminating. This has now been transformed into a series of political comments. In the issue of 12 November, for instance, there are three: on Mrs Gandhi's assassination, on the murder of Father Popieluszko in Po- land, and on a black jurist called Judge Hastie. All the newspapers and political journals dealt exhaustively with the man- ner and consequences of Mrs Gandhi's death, and frankly I am not interested in the New Yorker's view; nor do I care what it thinks about the internal state of Poland. The Hastie piece concerned an exhibition
at the Harvard Law School, and was perhaps just admissible, but its earnest, do-gooding tone became tiresome.
The writing confirmed Johnson's Law. How about this for a start? 'Marcos didn't have to personally order Aquino's mur- der'. Or this: 'Amid the swirling and treacherous currents of ongoing develop- ments in the dark, turbid swampland of suspicions and counter-suspicions. . . Why does a magazine of quality like the New Yorker write (my italics): 'The answers to such questions are not known at this writing' when what they mean is 'yet'? Why do they refer to the explanations 'the Warsaw regime may be expected to con- tinue offering over the next several months' when they mean 'soon'? Why do so many sentences begin, quite needlessly, with 'And'?
The politically obsessed tend to use clichés and vogue-words, and both are plentiful in the New Yorker today. Warsaw is 'confronted' with 'a potentially explosive situation'. 'Scenarios' are popping up all over Poland. We have 'convoluted' when I think the writer simply means 'compli- cated', 'oblivious' instead of 'unaware' (a common mistake) and 'turbid' when the right word is 'tortuous'. Most writers to- day, especially those who deal heavily in politics, fail to follow Evelyn Waugh's excellent advice to consult dictionaries constantly. Writing of the murdered priest, the New Yorker editorialist refers repeat- edly to his 'homilies' when he clearly means 'sermons'. The two are not synony- mous. A sermon may deal with great issues, while a homily is a simple discourse on morals. Queen Elizabeth I, who hated Puritan subversion, certainly knew the difference when she tried to get her bishops to ban sermons by the parochial clergy and force them to follow the Book of Homilies of 1563.
If the staff of a magazine write careless- ly, it is not surprising that they publish
poor material from contributors. I read with sadness a piece by one William Maxwell in this issue of the New Yorker. He was reminiscing about his Uncle Ted. A relaxed, conversational tone was thus in order but what we were given was verbal sloth:
Thirty or forty years later, if his name came up in conversation, women who were young at the same time he was would remark how attractive he was.
What is wrong with this sentence is not just the syntax but the sound. The man has
no ear for words; nor has the editor who let the sentence pass. Again, referring to his uncle's desire to lead the life of 'a classy
gent', Mr Maxwell writes: 'And he be- haved as if this kind of life was within his reach. Which it wasn't.' Quite apart from the intrusion and otiose 'And', I find this use of supposed speech rhythms in prose deadening rather than vivifying. It does not suggest to me that the writer is so thor- oughly at home with words that he can ignore the structural conventions; quite the contrary, it gives an impression of clumsy insensitivity. Moreover, the free-and-easy mode conflicts with the writer's excessive use of 'would', a sure sign of verbal pseudo-gentility. People who do not understand how to write English tend to put in a 'would' or two because they think it looks grand and official. My wife recent- ly had a letter from a town clerk about a parking fine. It began: 'I would refer to your letter of July 12.' Almost every subsequent sentence began 'I would point out' or 'I would remind you', in each case followed by a straightforward statement of fact which could perfectly well stand on its own without a pompous prolegomenon. Mr Maxwell's syntax may be unbuttoned but he too has a taste for town clerk's English. Take this as an example of bad writing: How much education he had of a kind that would prepare him for doing well in one occupation or another I have no idea. f would think not much. It is not clear what is meant by 'one, occupation or another'; and if the write really has `no idea' about the extent of his uncle's education, why does he venture an opinion? 'That would prepare him' is long-winded and awkward way of saYill.t `to prepare him'; and the second 'would' is also unnecessary. Mr Maxwell writes: 'When my grandfather Blinn would try to be strict with his son . . . .' The sentenc' construction is ugly; Maxwell should have crossed it out at this point and begun again' and 'would try to be' simply means 'trial ' be' — 'would' adds nothing. The New Yorker still has many virtue,: and much of the writing it publishes admirable. But let it leave turgid (or, it might say 'turbid') political moralising 7: other publications, and give us more wI e literature and sound, honest prose. The is too much politics in the world today' and there are not enough jokes.
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