The Grammar of Anthony Burgess’s The Eve of Saint Venus: “Simply to speak ill of those who truly deserve it shows a lack of imagination. All it requires is simple description. An infinitely more engaging task is merely to praise those who we think are worth our consideration — and ignore the rest. This positively dispraises the unmentioned by implication.
And, indeed, a very effective way for tenure-track literature teachers to stay on track while helping their students distinguish between sound literature and literary litter is to require that those students read good writing to learn what good writing is, and Cliff Notes to prepare for department-wide exams. Those teachers who are given tenure can then stop assigning Cliff Notes to, for instance, that recent well-seller that has a male dolphin kill the bad guy by raping him. Merely to notice such grotesqueries is to seem to elevate them beyond their proper status — that of literary litter.
Literary litter lays claim to the title of authentic literature because, among other reasons, it observes all the rules of grammar. Because grammar, if not virtue, can be taught, much of today’s literary litter exhibits good grammar along with its bad taste. But good grammar is as appropriate to literary litter as jewels and expensive cosmetics are to loathsome hags. This essay written in praise of the grammar of Anthony Burgess’s The Eve of Saint Venus addresses the difference between grammar used as drabs use jewels and lipstick, and those very same rules of grammar used as the necessary and appropriate complement to good writing. But if we are to think that a readership is correct in judging a book to be authentic literature merely because it is written following the rules of grammar, then we must conclude that grammar has the power to turn sows’ ears into silk purses. Grammar cannot do this, and the readership that thinks it can is clear neither about what a sow’s ear looks like nor what a silk purse looks like — an easily understood mistake. After all, each can be used to carry small change, and small change, whatever sort of purse is used to carry it in, is still small change.” The Vocabula Review
