Word Choice: The First of a Saga

At some point I am going to have to wake up to the reality that I am not going to earn a living selling poems. I am pretty sure the only people who do are the people who translate the Greeks and then sell the books to college literature surveys. This harsh reality has led me to ponder what an English degree can do well that other degrees cannot, besides being able to lick hundreds of manuscript queries a week without getting a single tongue paper cut. The conclusion? Pick words for people and charge for it.

This series is not meant to be a treatise on people confusing their and they're. If you still need help with that you have probably already stopped reading because nothing on this page has exploded yet. Rather, I hope to point out that I can word things better than many people who actually get paid to do it. This blog started as something devoted to the way people misuse a particular word. It quickly had to leave its original calling because the misuse of the word, though flagrant, was not as commonplace as I had at first guessed. Beyond that, the name sounds cool and suggests that I am out to change something. Which I am and now, full circle being reached, we have gotten back to words.

For this first installment I will go with probably the two most abhorrent words I can think of. These two are fine by themselves but together they are like Sid and Nacy: bad for each other and everyone involved.

"a Novel"

I like novels, I know people who write novels and I mean them no harm and so forth but these words have got to go or need to make new friends. Both would be good. 

The problem as I see it is that the words "a Novel" are a threat to my intelligence. 

"Ok, um, err, it's a big thick papery thing at Borders  it's either a novel or a book on tape in a box that looks like a novel." 

Seriously, you don't need to tell me I will figure it out. 

Or is it that you are concerned we will mistake your "novel" for something else? A steaming pile of misogynistic bovine leavings? 

Perhaps.

I just leaned over to my book shelf and checked, yes, a good friend of mine has the words "a Novel" in the title of his novel. I do not blame him but I do sort of blame his publisher. I imagine it was their fault. It is an endemic epidemic really and I doubt that any one person will change it soon and maybe the words themselves do not need to disappear but they could stand some company.

Allow me to widely misquote something if you will. Futurama did a series of straight-to-DVD movies after their first cancellation. The second in this series, The Beast with a Billion Backs was styled after 1950's monster films. The liner notes had a mini "movie poster" that featured the tagline "A MONSTER OF DUBIOUS MORALITY!!!" Which is hysterical, but moving on. Such a tag would go well after "a Novel." Caleb Ross's Stranger Will would do well with that actually. Stranger Will: a Novel of Dubious Morality. 

 

Like I said, I do not think its Caleb's fault that his title has the words novel in it and even if it is I can still chalk that one up to Caleb being a writer of our times. I do not think a writer wants to put "a Novel" after his or her work though. Much the way I do not title my poems "D.B. Cooper, a Poem." I suppose I could start, just to even out the score. I worry that people would be offended by it though. After all I do not need to remind people that it is a poem when

the lines look

like this

and there are

inanimate objects

are carnivorously

personified

and such.

I think "a Novel" is entirely a product of The Marketing Department. I did some very un-academic, non-scientific looking into and reached the conclusion that the newer the book the more likely it is to be called "a Novel." Additionally, product descriptions make those words more important than the author/publisher did. Don DeLillo is a fine example of both points.

This is his novel from the 1980's

This is from 2003

We see "a Novel" has been added to the title of the newer book, yet the subtitle is roughly a quarter the size of the main title. Now look at this picture.

The two parts of the title are now the same size. The latter picture is from a website trying to sell you the book.

J.D Salinger raises another point.

His says "a novel by" which is more of a description than a footnote to the title which is nice. However his "buy now" page on the same website does not remind you that it is a novel. One could argue that it should. DeLillo got the "a Novel" treatment and his was only a tiny blip at the end why is Salinger immune? Is it because we all know that Catcher was a novel and but cannot say the same for Underworld because it is new? Was DeLillo's "a Novel" really part of his title and therefore on the by page whereas perhaps Salinger did not write that it was simply added to the cover? Who knows.

That is sort of my point with this whole thing. Who invited these guys? Perhaps they are of value but I err on the side that they are not. The naked words, usually followed by a colon which indicates description, "a Novel" are a distraction from the art in hand. A title may be the only words you ever read by a given author. It would be nice if those words freely and clearly expressed exactly what the author wants you to know without having to lug around a dangling marketing appendage. 

For those who were holding out for an explosion: here is a simulation of the moon colliding with a theorized sister moon. Read the story in the journal Nature.