On Words

I know I said I jumped off the wagon just a few hours ago but the point of my post isn't really about Palin, but good writing.

When I watched the interviews and debates given by Palin, I noticed a lot of things and I can point them out for the most part and for the rest i just kind of talk around the issue, unable to perceive what exactly is making me react in certain ways.

However, when I read the articles on NYT or New Yorker, they can not only articulate the exact point I'm trying to make, but also point it out in a way that is succinct, poignant and clever.

In Parts of Her Speech, George Packer points out that the reason why Palin is so frustrating to listen to is because she lacks verbs in her sentences. Her sentences "quickly clot up with nouns...Sometimes most of a paragraph can go by without one." -- which is a reflection of her candidacy as pure "identity politics." The verb that she uses most often is "to be" because the only thing that she can offer is herself. This analysis is a billion times more interesting than me calling Palin a puppet.

I used to wonder what the differences are between someone who gets accepted into journalism at Columbia vs. other good writers I know who can't get in--now I can see that there are huge differences:

• there are those who are perceptive
• there are those who are perceptive and articulate
• there are those who some are perceptive, articulate, and eloquent.
• and then there are those who some are perceptive, articulate, eloquent, and witty.

As James Wood points out in his analysis about the republican's attacks on Obama's words, "words do matter." As you grow older, you realize that even if you are insightful and perceptive, there are a lot of people in the world who are just as smart as, if not smarter than, you. You can make a sharp analysis about a movie, full of observations and even profundity, and those around you may be impressed, but if you go online and read some blogs, you will most likely find that a lot of other smart people have already made similar observations and remarks. As you get older, you recognize that it's no longer just about ideas, but how ideas are expressed. (That's also also one of the reasons why rhetoric is so important.)

I remember a while ago, I read an article on Salon.com about the death of literary critics and one sentence really struck me. Louis Bayard, a book critic notes:

I find I'm drawn to critics for the same reason I'm drawn to any writer: the quality of their prose. They can misinterpret and misevaluate to their heart's delight as long as they make the words dance.

It's true: you can say whatever you want, you can have the most brilliant or the most insensible ideas, but how you say makes the difference.