(Poet, Amatoritsero Ede in Conversation with Tom Howell, \u2018recovering\u2019 Lexicographer and writer of the Genre-Queer) <\/i><\/p>\n
Amatoritsero Ede<\/b>: Tom, it is a pleasure to discuss your hilarious work, The Rude Story of English<\/i>, and the vision behind it. How would you categorize this work\u2019s genre? Creative nonfiction does not quite do it for me. Please, be elaborate.<\/p>\n
Tom Howell<\/b>: How generous of you to say, \u2018be elaborate\u2019! The story itself elaborates on the simple premise that English began one day. That\u2019s directly opposed to how the history of English has been told to me by experts. They present the origins of this language as complex. The more sophisticated the expert, the more complex the origins are explained to be. My complaint is that such a complex start produces a very simple conclusion: there is no \u2018story\u2019 of English. The less expert the teller, the closer we get to a tale in the traditional sense. But even the most popular versions missed the mark, or so it seemed to me. I reasoned that a highly simplistic beginning to the tale would evolve into an answer that was complex and lifelike and, you know, more awesome. \u2018Elaborating on a premise\u2019 probably isn\u2019t much use as a category, but maybe it gives a rough idea?<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> Could we say you have just invented a new genre right there? Your publisher, McClelland and Stewart, described the work as \u201cLanguage Arts; Education \u2013 Reference; Humor \u2013 Essays.\u201d While it is all of that, it is still much more.<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> To be honest, when writing my first draft, it never crossed my mind that the borders of genre still mattered. I thought books had passed that point a generation ago. Later in the process, I realized this was wrong. Most of us need familiar genre names to tune our minds before reading. We want to know when somebody\u2019s words are to be trusted, in which way, and on what grounds. We\u2019re okay with using words for different purposes\u2014prediction, play, or prayer\u2014but if someone else\u2019s intent is inscrutable, that may be annoying. So I strove to be as scrutable as possible, often stating my methods, in the hope that readers don\u2019t feel lost and alone, even as I let the genre itself go kind of haywire.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> You are a \u2018recovering\u2019 lexicographer. Let\u2019s play the asterisking<\/i> game, which you credit for helping philologists explain the etymology of a word. But in this case we want to create a word or phrase to capture a possible new genre. Unlike the classic situation in asterisking which aims \u201cto plug a hole in real world evidence,\u201d of how a word came to be, we do have evidence here \u2013 in this instance your work, Rude Story.<\/i><\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> \u2018Genre-queer?\u2019 Hollywood uses \u201cbased on a true story,\u201d which is roughly right but too wordy. \u201cSpeculative non-fictional heroic epic\u201d suffers from the same problem. The most common industry term, I think, is \u201csemi-fiction.\u201d That\u2019s not bad. But since you mention it, I reckon \u201casterisk reality\u201d is a fine term. It was invented by a linguist named Tom Shippey. I\u2019d be glad to see it co-opted to describe works cross-breeding the essay with the novel or poem. I\u2019m sure there are lots of these about.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> Rude Story <\/i>suggests that philologists are storytellers. If necessary they create stories to support the etymology of words. In how far can we say that our world then is an illusion, considering that we describe that world with words and because words are arbitrary \u2013 are fictions?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> Well, I envy philosophers but my own background in the field is limited to having had a crush on Richard Rorty (mind more than body) during my twenties, and it\u2019s been a while since I read any of his books. My take on this question may therefore be \u2018rude,\u2019 in the sense of \u2018inexpert,\u2019 or \u2018raw\u2019. One thought pops into my mind, though. To call words \u2018arbitrary\u2019 just shows one side of the coin. As you mentioned, words have life stories (whether scholars know them or not) and these pasts give solidity to the present form. A word\u2019s meaning is therefore a bit free and a bit determined.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> You have made of a boring, dead topic an engaging and exciting readable narrative with central mythological and ancient characters, Hengest, Horsey, Horsehair, Vortigern and so on. What was the impetus for all this?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> My partner, Helen Guri, owns two wooden dolls named Hengest and Horsa, after a pair of semi-historical \/ elaborated figures from early English oral history. Horsehair, also semi-historical, may have been Hengest\u2019s sister, or daughter, or both. I liked these people and what they brought to the history. Resuscitating their names and building up their biographies struck me as relevant to the topic at hand\u2014i.e. words, languages, and how these come to be. The needs of the characters helped me explore the point that desiring is part of knowing.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> I have never been impressed with the effect of graphs, charts, diagrams, and pictorial sketches in narrative. But here, rather than act as distraction, they are, elucidatory visual accompaniments to a fascinating account. And they also underline the humour of the whole work. What gave you the idea of empiric data; and how was it possible for the illustrator to capture humour and statistics so well?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> The illustrator, Gabe Foreman, is also a very good poet with a playful attitude to language and a deep imagination. That helped him make all the right judgement calls. On the statistics, I enjoy the tug-of-war between empiric data and the more romantic, imaginative drive. Having those two forces wrestle for control of the story seemed\u2026 I think I just found it funny, actually. Their rivalry throughout the book makes me laugh. I\u2019m not sure how smart it really is.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> I wager that a postcolonial reading of this text would yield a lot of insights for how the spread of language is synonymous with the spread of empires. Do you think we could consider the English not only \u2018rude\u2019 but also violent?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> If someone gave The Rude Story of English<\/i> a going-over from that point-of-view, I\u2019d be thrilled (as soon as I got over the sting). As I see it, what qualifies me to write this book also disqualifies me. My life route goes from British private school to Oxford dictionary department to national public radio, sliding me naturally into the armchair from which a person\u2014usually a man\u2014recounts a wide-ranging cultural history in a jocular tone. I wrote the book because I loved the premise and because I wanted to and was allowed to. Someone who didn\u2019t come by that permission so easily might have done a better job of moving English language\u2019s story beyond its old Anglo centre. The violence relating to British and American empires goes far and deep and has many senses to it, and there is a problem with stretching the word \u2018rude\u2019 to envelop the topic. I tried to resolve the problem in the book but I don\u2019t know how well I succeeded. Most in my social circle would acknowledge that British nationals committed extraordinary violence in war, trade, and government over the past half-millennium of world history. But to call the English language<\/i> violent might strike some as weird if they\u2019ve never read the work of, say, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, or NourbeSe Philip here in Canada, or any number of other poets and scholars who have tackled the point somewhere in their writing. I hadn\u2019t read any of those writers until a few years ago, and before encountering them I would have had a hard time talking about a language\u2019s complicity in violence. I can\u2019t remember, but probably I would have quibbled and protested. Now, however, calling English \u2018violent,\u2019 among other things, sounds roughly right.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> It appears that the career of English has been very aggressive and capitalist, as personified in Hengest, from day one. What in your opinion is England\u2019s chief gift to the world, language as a globalising tool or our ability to identify oppression even when it is disguised as simple language games?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> Those are interesting choices you give me. I wouldn\u2019t dispute that the globalizing tool of English is a gift\u2014it is\u2014but perhaps it\u2019s the sort of gift that also imposes, like giving someone a new chandelier, or an animal they didn\u2019t ask for? The recipient might value the benefits while still feeling pissed-off about the whole situation, and mourn the alternative opportunities this gift now closes down. As for the ability to spot oppression in odd places, I can see the easy riposte that nobody required England and English in particular for that. But if I understand the question correctly, you\u2019re suggesting that looking at English (its career, its character, the composition of its vocabulary) gives us a useful way into thinking about oppression on many levels, especially the disguised or harmless-looking varieties. While my writing is full of jokes, this suggestion does point at a place I wanted the book to go, even if I don\u2019t quite get there.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> At the beginning you mentioned how the philologist J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired to write his novels, the Lord of the Rings series, and The Hobbit due to the inspiration of Beowulf and other ancient texts. I wonder if you do not have a novel or several novels in you, considering the philology-inspired, narratological sub-layer and imagination of Rude Story<\/i>. Are you secretly working on a masterpiece novel?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> Helen Guri is secretly working on her masterpiece second collection of poems. (Oh, I guess it\u2019s not a secret anymore.) She supported me through four years of writing this book, financially, editorially, emotionally, domestic laboriously. I can\u2019t thank her enough. I can, however, work off my debt by responding in kind, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do for the next while.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> Contemporary writing does not usually have much humour in it; such writing are usually serious, contemplative, provocative or innovative, and so on, but few are hardly ever humorous. How important was the deployment of humour in order for you to have achieved the effects you had in your sight; and what were those effects or goals?<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> I\u2019ve heard many people remark on the humourless state of, at least, Canadian big-press fiction and nonfiction. It\u2019s interesting. I\u2019d never noticed it or thought about it. For me, dealing with humour is less about \u2018deployment\u2019 and more about removal. My drafts are littered with impulsive jokes, frivolous ideas, distracting asides. They all crack me up while I\u2019m writing, of course, but once I\u2019ve picked myself up off the floor and let a joke sit on the page for a while, I often come to see how dumb it is. I\u2019m terribly obnoxious about laughing at my own jokes. I cackle at them far more than at other people\u2019s. Sometimes a thought hits me on the street or at the grocery store and I double-up. Perhaps that\u2019s commonplace, although I don\u2019t really notice other people doing it. If The Rude Story <\/i>makes you laugh, I think it\u2019s mostly succeeding already, because to find it funny you need to be on a wavelength with it. After that, I can\u2019t say there are many goals\u2014I mean, sure I enjoyed meditating on parts, or learning stuff about King Alfred or whatever, but thinking and learning and even discomfort are all ingredients of enjoyment. I guess the hoped-for effect of laughter is that it encourages a reader to turn the page, and keep turning pages until the end.<\/p>\n
A.E.:<\/b> Thank you for taking time off your busy schedule to chat with us.<\/p>\n
T.H.:<\/b> Thanks for the honour! MTLS is a great journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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