Wednesday 3 June 2009

Very Clever

There was a very clever man who successfully undertook to write a great book in which he re-arranged the letters of the alphabet in every linguistically conceivable way; all twenty six letters placed in sequences of every possible order, and, as said, he was successful in his undertaking, though it did take him a great length of time, but such durations very often are the very measure of greatness. Every possible order- such ingenuity, even if admittedly the practicalities of realising such an idea could hardly have been more banal and tedious.
But not to him. Happily he found in this interminable rearranging of letters the utmost satisfaction- a veritable life-time's work, and how many of us can be said to have been lucky enough to have found such a notion, and an exalted one at that, worthy of serving to such levels of devotion and tenacity? It was fascinating in itself, this absolute focusing of attention on such precise operations to whose overall thematic success imprecision of execution was definitively fatal. It was fascinating in itself, but to think every now and then of the great idea which was being served- O joy! And naturally this joy was more than shared by the great hordes who are ever willing from the sidelines to cheer on such artistic successes, and who bought in their hordes the great work when it did finally appear in several large volumes.

2 comments:

Vicki said...

Hey, I'm a British book blogger and I saw your comment about the novel Home on one of the other blogs. I haven't read it yet but thought I ought to blog on it, seeing as it's just won the Orange Prize - I've thrown open the floor for a few thoughts if you have a minute to spare? I'd be very grateful!!

Andrew said...

I'll drop by but I must admit I've not read it either.