In the New York Times Book Review this weekend, Julia Reed found Annie Dillard’s latest, The Maytrees, somewhat inaccessible.
There are no mere ragamuffins in Dillard, only a “tatterdemalion”; the tone of a man’s calf muscle is, here, the “tonus.” It was heartening in a way to find that she had spelled “pauciloquy” wrong, but even in its correct form, the Oxford English Dictionary deems its usage “rare.”
The book seemed overly pompous to me, so I was taken aback when I heard Dillard on NPR this weekend. Her book sounded pretty wonderful. And she not only sounded accessible, she sounded like fun.
On the other hand, Jonathan Lethem seemed to have put on his “take this seriously” hat. He was on talking about the Library of America Philip K. Dick collection, which he edited, so I suppose there was some burden to be proper. Even if this came across as a bit studied, I thought it was excellent:
As Lenny Bruce is to the American comedy tradition, Philip K. Dick is to science fiction. He was the hipster, he was the drug casualty, and he was the dissident voice.
And, since these shows are archived, I don’t have to sit in 100-degree parking lots until they’re done. Whew.
I love the word “tatterdemalion”–I first came across it in the Smollett translation of Don Quixote.
I wonder where other people encounter it.
Tito Perdue used it recently in his new novel “Fields of Asphodel,” and I must admit it stopped me in my tracks.
The shock of recognition–I couldn’t help but feel it was a nod to the one other place I’d seen it.
But surely that word was everywhere back in the day.