Challenge 1076 Response discusses...

“Swain and Althea”

and textual analysis

with Patricia Worth

[Challenge question] In Charles C. Cole’s Swain and Althea, readers will find, throughout, a systematic illustration of a rhetorical principle: the function of anything in a text can be determined by simply omitting it.

For example, take the first sentence: “Swain Clatchee, community lay minister, and Althea Grover sat in the front seat of Swain’s black Ford Ranger, holding hands and listening to the gentle drumming of a spring shower.” Omit any coherent detail. What information is lost concerning Swain Clatchee and Althea Grover?

[Patricia Worth] My response: It's an excellent short piece that kept me reading without needing a break. I then analysed the first sentence as you suggested, and now I better understand the purpose and placement of each phrase. We need to know we're reading about a community which is probably too small for an ordained minister, that Swain drives a black truck which hints at funerals, but that he's not gloomy or hard since he holds Althea's hand while they sit together quietly and listen to gentle spring rain.

I recently analysed a book by Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach, which has been edited controversially by Puffin Books. Sensitivity readers had advised omitting certain words and rewriting the text with politically correct words. The deletion of some words results in a deletion of the humour that Dahl is known for, and why he was first published. They are words which he carefully thought of. But he's dead so he can't object.

[Don Webb] Poor Roald Dahl, to suffer such an ignominious fate! But he was far from the first: Thomas and Harriet Bowdler contributed their name to the process of literary censorship with their publication of The Family Shakespeare, in 1807. They “bowdlerized” the language of Shakespeare’s plays to make it acceptable “to women and children.” Today, one might wonder how Mrs. Bowdler felt about being demoted to the status of a child, but then she was part of the scheme. Today, bowdlerization persists and even flourishes in many genres and media for many different purposes.

Does Bewildering Stories practice bowdlerization? No, BwS does the opposite. Our official “Profanity” guideline requires that the “f” and “s” words be used in their literal sense, not as frivolous dismissals. With that in mind, authors may consider their fictional characters free to cuss a blue streak... to the extent needed, of course.

Meanwhile, Patricia, you’re off to a good start in explicating the first sentence of Charlie Cole’s “Swain and Althea.” It's hard to resist continuing to explore the information implied. For example, Swain and Althea are seated in the “front” seat, not a back seat, and they’re holding hands. Those details depict the current stage of their relationship. In addition, “the gentle drumming of a spring shower” denotes the time and mood of the setting. And the couple’s “listening” uses a verb of action; it implies that something more than the rain — probably speech — will soon be heard.

The explication de texte is purely a French educational exercise, as far as I know. And yet it is easy to learn and practice anywhere. It can be very rewarding intellectually when applied to texts such as those by Charlie Cole. And in everyday life, it poses a basic, practical question: À quoi ça sert ? — “What’s it for?” And that simple concept of function underlies Bewildering Stories’ understanding of the ancient motto Ars longa, vita brevis, which we freely interpret as “Proofreading never ends.”