Association Two: Aftershocks

After I spent the last post discussing when associative devices really work, I’d like to go back to passages I’ve encountered that, to me, really don’t. 

Perhaps you have seen this series of mystery novels by Monica Ferris, in which needlework shop owner Betsy Devonshire solves crimes in the suburban, lakeside town of Excelsior, Minnesota, which in this universe has a murder rate roughly equivalent to Detroit:

Yes, these books are just as goofy as they look.  I have read several of them.  The less said about this, the better*. 

*Okay fine I know I’m acting super elitist about this series, so to make up for it I have to admit that they are not without their own comforting, whimsical charm; like spending the afternoon gossiping with your grandmother over coffee and almond cookies.  

 In any case.  I read the following after I’d first picked up Blackwork, and it stood out to me enough that I had to pause. 

“His gray wool overcoat with the tie belt was a perfect match in color for the fedora.  Around his neck he wore a gold-colored, loosely-knit scarf so enormous it was practically a shawl.  With all this, plus his narrow trousers and thin black shoes, he looked like an illustration in an upscale magazine article entitled, ‘What the Fashionable Man Is Wearing.’”

(Blackwork, Chapter 1)

Okay.  First off, I’ll give credit where credit is due; with that passage, I do understand what this character looks like.  I can see him, and the first obligation of description is satisfied.  Still, I’m not convinced it’s working in the second regard; I’m being told how the character appears, but I’m not seeing or feeling him.  The description, I feel, sounds clunky and awkward.  It is much too long.  You sense the author wanting to express something they can’t quite grasp. 

To use William Grimes’ words, “like a bad alibi, it is both too vague and too specific” (Straight Up Or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail, Chapter Three: “First Stirrings”). Of course, I know the struggle that lies in determining what can be vague, and what must be specific.  Much as I’d like to, I don’t have a formula—and I suspect no one else does, either—for the ideal level of specificity in detail; the best I have been able to do is learn from reading (protip: reading and listening to comedy will probably teach you as much about specific and succinct description as serious writing, but more on that in a later post).  However, I can at least tackle this particular cumbersome association. 

I don’t have a problem with the list of articles of clothing described on our sartorial man-about-town, for the most part.  Two or three key items lend some tangibility to the description, just enough to give the reader an impression.  If I’m being picky, I’d eliminate the mention of the shoes—I’m actually having a hard time picturing what it means to have “thin shoes.  I’m also not a fan of “trousers” over “pants” in this case; the word “trousers” has always seemed very self-consciously old-fashioned to me, and I tend to associate “trousers” with what 40-year-olds wore in the fifties and what 80-year-olds wear today. 

The fact that he is an “illustration”, however, does not need to be mentioned.  He is not a piece of text, and thus must appear as a visual; to say that he looked like a photograph or drawing would give the figure more texture in the mind of the reader, but I’m not convinced that’s necessary.  My biggest beef, though, is with “an upscale magazine.”  I am wary of brand specific description: “he drove his Acura to the club, and in the locker room slipped into his Under Armour and laced up his Reeboks.”  My personal rule is that unless the product itself is distinctive and carries its own cultural associations (a Prius versus a Pinto) or conspicuous consumption figures heavily in the object and theme (see every other page of American Pyscho), it’s unnecessary to substitute brand names in place of object names.  After reading the above passage, I believe I can add one more exception. 

If he had stepped out of just “a magazine,” I doubt I would pay so much attention to it.  However, I agree with the author that “magazine needs a qualifier; this guy is from a specific type of magazine, and that type is not Field and Stream.  Unfortunately, stating “an upscale magazine” sounds as though the author is either unwilling to state just which magazine she means; or worse, that she can’t be bothered to pinpoint just what publication she means.  It feels lazy, the fiction equivalent of telling the reader “like a really nice, glossy fashion magazine, you know what I mean.”  It doesn’t help that a further qualifier was added about the “article entitled, ‘What the Fashionable Man Is Wearing’”, which is entirely unnecessary (Think back to the last time you paged through a fashion magazine.  How many people in the entire thing were dressed like schlubs?).  The passage still searches for what it means precisely, and the result is to make the reader wade through extra words until a general impression is formed.  Don’t make the reader do all the work; say what you mean. 

Thus, I submit that this case calls for brand specificity.  If you are not going to get your point across unless you have to throw in extraneous clauses, use the brand name.  There are plenty of options here; if VMAN is too outré or not sufficiently recognizable, Vogue or Esquire will surely do.  I don’t even think one must limit oneself to print magazines; a reference to Mr. Porter gets the job done (albeit I doubt that the majority of Ferris’ readership demographic knows shit from shinola about blogs, no offense to anyone). 

If I were to re-write this passage, I might spring for this:

“He wore narrow, tapered pants and a gold, loose-knit scarf around his neck, so enormous it was nearly a shawl.  With his gray woolen overcoat matching his fedora, he seemed to have sprung from the pages of Esquire.”

Still not quite perfect, but at least there’s a reduction of twenty-three words without losing meaning.