Eric Arthur Blair

You cannot rebel against a government unless you know something about that government. You cannot rebel against a set of rules unless you first understand those rules. If you wish to go where no man as gone before, you better have a good idea where the all these other men have gone before.

Tom Wright, in his inimitable way, wrote a quick comment to one chapter of a series I commenced about blogging.  In 16 lines or so, he sets out the rules for the American writer:

Orwell, "Politics and the English Language":

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?                 
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"

Orwell finishes with these rules:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in     print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens


Where in the hell do these rules come from? I submit they come from Mark Twain the originator of the MODERN AMERICAN NOVEL.  And if you ever wish to read the funniest critique of another writer and learn the rules that Orwell has put forth per our T.Wright, you must read Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences.

Cooper's art has some defects.  In one place in Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115.  It breaks the record. (180)

What this critique does is to put Orwell's rules into context. Twain in 1895 is demonstrating a reaction, a rebellion against a previous American Literary Tradition. Here are a few of his 115 rules which really ends up being about 18:

12.   Say what you are proposing to say, not merely come near to it.
13.   Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14.   Eschew surplusage.
15.   Do not omit necessary details.
16.   Avoid slovenliness of form.
17.   Use good grammar.
18.   Employ a simple and straightforward style.

I reproduce the following, not just to underline Twain's distaste for inconsistency in writing, but to demonstrate his inexhaustible talent at creating humor where few others would dare even try:

Cooper's eye was splendidly inaccurate.  Cooper seldom saw anything correctly.  He saw nearly all things as through a glass darkly.  Of course a man who cannot see the commonest little everyday matters accurately is working at a disadvantage when his is constructing a 'situation.' In the Deerslayer tale, Cooper has a stream which is fifty feet wide, where it flows out of a lake; it presently narrows to twenty feet as it meanders along for no given reason, and yet, when a stream acts like that it ought to be required to explain itself.  Fourteen pages later the width of the brook's outlet from the lake has suddenly shrunk thirty feet and become the narrowest part of the stream.  This shrinkage is not accounted for.  The stream has bends in it, a sure indication that it has alluvial banks, and cuts them; yet these bends are only thirty and fifty feet long.  If Cooper had been a nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed that the bends were oftener nine hundred fee long than short of it.       

Twain is 60 when he writes this. You would not wish to get into an argument as to how rivers work with a man who had been a river boat captain and a genius with words. 

Twain is saying: KNOW YOUR SUBJECT, DO NOT PRETEND TO KNOW YOUR SUBJECT

Cooper was splendidly inaccurate. What the hell does that mean? Opposites do attract. The shortest manner in which to write this line is to say: Cooper was inaccurate. But, I still laugh 40 years after reading this line.

"...when a stream acts like that it ought to be required to explain itself."  Rivers do no speak. But we are dealing with metaphor here. More information or description should have been added by Cooper to explain how the river ever ended up flowing in the manner he depicts.

Many, including me at times, maintain that it is not what you say but how you say it.

That statement is just not true.  Always, always, always consider what you are trying to say.
Make sure you have some handle on the subject at hand. Which is why I attempt to stay away from the bank crisis even though it is the single greatest economic catastrophe in eighty years.

I at least attempt in my comments to question certain aspects of the crisis that have come to light and comment on those issues. The issues I think I understand.

The point of this post however, was to underline something that kept me from writing my entire life.  I have written thousands upon thousands of pages as a professional but not as a writer. Not as an essayist or a dabbler in fiction.

The only way I could begin on this path at such a late age was to be myself.  However ugly. However inept. EVERY TIME I PRETEND TO KNOW SOMETHING I DON'T, I GET HIT ON THE HEAD.  I get caught.

Craig Crawford posted comments at two of my posts.  As Artappraiser (who actually elicited a comment from him) put it, Craig Crawford writes as he speaks.  And check out his blog at Trail Mix or his regular essays at Congressional Quarterly or elsewhere. He is always Craig Crawford.

Do not let rules choke the literary life out of you.  Remember, in any day or age, rules were set up as reactions to other traditions.

Just the same, pay attention to the Wright, Orwell, Twain rules, so that at least you will know what rules you are breaking. 

My favorite line in Twain's essay:

There have been daring people in the world who claim that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now...  (190)



Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays, 1891-1910, Library of America NYNY 1992