Loefied (part 1?)

It strikes me gradually that reading Erlend Loe (currently "naive.super.") is getting to my brain. Whatever I do turns into a running commentary in my brain no matter what I do. A succession of dry, short sentences in the present tense accompany my every move, even the most redundant or banal actions. To some extent I feel that it's a fine thing.

I decide to consider him my master, or sensei, for a short time. As an experiment of thought. What I realize, as his adept, is that I have to stop using really long sentences. And complex words. In this frame of mind, they strike me all the more as unnecessary clutter. I imagine that perhaps Loe writes according to the Lean style of manufacturing. No excess wanted. Of course, I don't know if he's aware of this notion, but the thought enlivens me. In the end I convince myself that he would probably consider it a compliment that I'm practising to write differently. I should send him a thank-you email for upheaving my writer's block. But that would be so close to embodying the main character in naive.super. that I decide not to. I don't think he deserves to feel any unwelcome responsibility for my mundane actions. I know I would have been bothered.

I decide regardless that I'll give it a try. I also decide to ignore the fact that this is plagiarism. To start with, It doesn't go very well. The brevity (and thereby the wit) is more suited to swedish (I know the original is written in norwegian but I decide to overlook this fact). Also, I realize that my usual style of writing is given to unnecessary flourishes. In the vein of Loe, these must be written as a list:

What I do in my writing that is incompatible for Loe's style:

- parentheses full of sidetracks (very long).
- use of the above (excessive).
- use of the past tense.
- use of dependent clauses (excessive).
- long sentences.
- use of unnecessarily exotic formulations.

While I list these things it strikes me how much I like using them all. But I would be a deplorable Erlend Loe adept if I challenged them, and the whole experiment would be upended.

Finally the concept of adapting myself to the style overwhelms my brain for a minute and I resort to escapism. I call my father. I do some of my work. I go to lunch with my colleagues. I eat pork with potatoes, dill and sauce while my colleagues take the vegetarian buffet. It amuses me no end that the vegetarian dishes sometimes have captions in the following vein:

------------------------
Lentil and bean stew

Contains: vegan
------------------------

Back from lunch, I decide that I've thought the better of the situation, and will not bite Erlend Loe's style for all the foreseeable future. But I believe that it may be good for me to revisit the master's style occasionally. Just to gain perspective on my usual literary tendencies. I like the idea of a recurring theme.


***

That said (with considerable relief from climbing out of the constraints of someone else's style), I figure the above is a pretty pretentious bit of , but I'm too old to not write what I want for my own high amusement. And I meant what I wrote, that I think it's good for me to exercise the non-use of the featured 'sins' in my list (although I seem to be reclaiming them all in this paragraph...) I'm doing this again sometime. It was fun but difficult (though I'm nowhere near as funny... I'll make that a later ambition.).