August 1, 2011
a book review cliché wish list.
Darryl Campbell’s suggestions are delightful. For example:
USE EPONYMS INSTEAD OF SYNONYMS
This neatly sidesteps the “elongated yellow fruit” problem. An author whose prose might be called “achingly beautiful” instead becomes “the Delacroix of literature”; a “darkly funny” book is now a “Rabelaisian comedy.” If fine artists aren’t your thing, then maybe American presidents might be a better comparison: “Taft-like excess,” “Cleveland-esque genre-bending” or “Clintonian eroticism.”
