On reading one of my pieces in this publication, an acquaintance commented that my writing was too ‘modern’ for his tastes. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and not a pleasant one, as I have always tried to maintain an air of good natured, vapid jollity in the best traditions of PG Wodehouse.
How, then, to answer this slur upon my good name? (Please note that I manfully resisted the distinctly modern urge to use the compound word ‘goodname’) I determined that the best way to silence the naysayers would be to set about crafting a piece unmistakable in its Shropshire origins and this, dear reader, is the result. And yet, even as I scribble down these words (yes, I am writing in good old ink, just to prove how Old School I am), I realize that writing an article that is essentially about writing an article is distressingly post-modern. Drat! Thwarted at the first fence!
Perhaps, then, I should seek to draw inspiration from a source even more steeped in history. I have been fascinated by the Bard ever since my Literature teacher belted out the closing song from “Twelfth Night” in a pretty good baritone in front of an enthralled classroom of impressionable 14-year-olds. Perhaps constructing a piece in iambic pentameter would serve to prove that I can alliterate with the best of them...
But column widths in print are just too slim,
and verse in prose again a modern whim.
Then what can one do if one is to prove,
that classically drawn’s his every move?
Perhaps the Victorian era can serve as a source of material that I might draw on to convince the sceptics. But I must admit that tales of elemental corsetry and emotional constipation leave me cold. I realize that I must now raise my voice in order to be heard above the crescendo of gasps emanating from the thousands of female readers for whom Mr. Darcy is the epitome of strong, silent manhood, but I maintain that, in this day and age, tales of smouldering looks and shuddering bosoms should be confined to the lower echelons of trashy romantic fiction, and even those have abandoned the officious prose of their more genteel forefathers.
And yet, I am being constantly assailed by the feeling that I am barking up the wrong bookshelf. After all, in all the creative pursuits it does appear that borrowing heavily from the past is one of the best ways of exhibiting your progressiveness. There is the ‘old wine in a new bottle’ rock of The Darkness and Wolfmother, the ‘black and white is the new Technicolor’ cinema of all the latest darlings of Uncle Oscar, the reinterpretations of the old Masters by Fernando Bottero and the skinny ties and slimline suits of the Paris catwalks. All clearly drink deeply from the well of their spiritual ancestors, and all are unequivocally labelled as modern.
Could it be, then, that in calling my writing ‘modern’, my critic actually meant that he could see in it echoes of the full breadth of my literary lineage? Tempting though this thought is, I think that if I were to believe this, I would be deluding myself, for the comment was delivered with just the hint of a look down the nose. From a man of that vintage, this can only mean one thing. His comment was intended to be taken in a ‘these modern kids have no appreciation for the past and no respect for their elders’ kind of way. To quote Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, and to confirm that my writing lineage is deeply intertwined with the mother tongue in addition to the Queen’s English:
“Tujhay apnay a’baa say koi nisbat ho nahin sakti
Keh tu guftar, woh kirdar, tu sabit, woh sayyara”
I realize that there is a risk in writing this article that your columnist, in addition to being labelled a modern writer, will be branded as a self-aggrandising snob, but I am willing to take the risk in order to clear my good (two words) name. Referring to oneself in the third person in places is surely not helping my suit either on this front.
What is one to do, then? All avenues appear to be closed. An affected writing style is as irritating as an affected accent; just compare the ‘British’ accents of certain DJs on certain English language FM radio stations to, say, ‘The God of Small Things’, and you will quickly agree with me. To digress a bit, one thing I cannot ever overlook is the incorrect and unnecessary addition of the letter ‘s’ at the end of the word anyway, which seems to be the favourite pastime of most of the said DJs and, by inference, a large portion of today’s teen brigade. So a conscious effort to change how I write would, on consideration, be counter to my own beliefs. And yet I cannot let this slur rest; something must be done.
Yet another undeniable proof of my ancient writing style is manifested in my unshakeable irritation in the way today’s word processing software is configured in modern Americanese. I know you can change the language to Proper English, but the software has a distressing habit of reverting to type. I feel compelled to spell my favourites and colours with u’s, and my organisations and modernisations with s’s – unmistakeably (with an ‘e’) Old School, you would agree.
My final argument against the modernising brigade is this: the modern age is one of minimalism, of paring things down, of never using three words when one will do. Even words have become truncated, dropping vowels and consonants faster than a Pakistani cricketer does catches, and txtspk has entered the common lexicon. Punctuation is something that has become largely optional for some of today’s most fêted authors, and in these times to insist on actually using commas and semi-colons, on nt shrtng ur wds and, in particular, to ramble on for a while just setting a scene can well be considered distressingly traditionalist.
You, dear reader, have just reached the end of an article that is impeccably spelt, thoroughly punctuated and, most importantly, is about absolutely nothing. The defence rests, even as Old PG smiles benevolently and approvingly from his grave, and forever lives on, in spirit at least.
Originally published in Dawn, August 2008
The edited version, as published:
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