A recent criticism regarding my posts was that they were like a foghorn. The critic’s intention was, of course, to deride, to mock, to ridicule, to jeer at… etc, etc. But a foghorn? A loud, strong, clear note which cuts through background noise like a hot knife through butter? A loud, strong, clear note which cuts through mufflingly thick fog? I take this as a compliment, as praise, not as an insult as intended! The more so as I read some essays by psychoanalyst Adam Phillips……
………essays written for conferences and for radio by, according to the flyleaf, one of Britian’s “most elegant and original prose stylists”. Actually, their style was instantly recognisable to me. The writing did not, however, make me think of elegant prose styles, but rather rather of sociology-speak.
I once attended lectures given by a sociologist. He spoke in rather the same way as Phillips writes. One instruction which I will never forget was the lecturer’s invitation to his small audience to “engage with that very small screen at the back of the room”. What he MEANT, was “turn round and look at that tv”.
This is Phillips’ “elegant and original prose” style. I don’t think the style is very original — it is a style beloved of sociologists — and while it may, to some, seem “elegant” it is “elegant” in much the same way as Baroque is “elegant”. That is, it is OTT. It does not communicate the writer’s ideas clearly and simply. The language obfuscates and muddles and by the time one has translated the “elegant and original prose” into plain English one is too exhausted to then attempt to follow the author’s ideas and arguments. The essays are, to me, a prime example of an author focussing on impressing his readers with his “elegant and original prose” at the expense of good communication. This author, as well as being a psychoanalyst, is also a visiting professor to a university English department. All I can say is: god help his patients/clients AND his students if this is the language he subjects them to.
As to the content of his essays, I will comment on one: Arbus’s Freaks. The subject of this essay is photographer Diane Arbus and her photographic subjects: freaks.
Firstly, assumptions. Phillips writes of people’s attitudes to her photos: “people like us….who….are fascinated by freaks”. Who is “us”? I, in fact, am NOT fascinated by freaks. I do not want to look at pictures of freaks. However, Phillips clearly IS fascinated by freaks — he says he is. And I think it is true that most other people are also fascinated by freaks. But there is a reason for that. This is a sick world. People are sick. They are drugged up on power. Being “fascinated” by freaks: mounting photographic freak shows and viewing such exhibitions is, quite simply, a symptom of this sickness.
However, Phillips does not call a spade a spade. He comes up with a suitable justification for such freak shows: the “photographs…create a kind of vicarious sociability with people we….wouldn’t be able to get on with”. Oh, so that’s ok then. These photographic exhibitions weren’t freak shows after all…………yeah, right, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.