by Sam Kean
I’m hoping here, now, after a combined twenty-three months of their being dead, and two full months after the most recent death, that the statute of limitations has expired on de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and that I may be allowed to speak, if not ill of the dead, at least in a frank and semi-unflattering way.
Not that I want to, exactly. The thought of speaking ill-ish of these two men still rattles me, still stokes a bourgeois fear of being found out as less than cultured. Combined, they reigned over the Brahmin caste of American literary English users for close to a century (I’d pulled that figure out of the air, as hyperbole, before I realized it was practically true!), and while they maybe don’t have ghosts, they were grammatical prescriptivists and do have disciples, descendents, and defenders of repute, who are more vigilant and vengeful than ghosts ever were anyway. There’s also, admittedly, a sort of guild guilt. Both men were writers, fancy ones, deploying octosyllabics most of us would have trouble pronouncing if spelled out fo-net-i-cal-ly. They’re smarter than me; they spoke French and Latin and Sanskrit probably; and it just sounds so philistine, downright sans-culotte, to criticize someone for writing too well.
Nonetheless. With all due respect and paces to their skill and influence, when it came down to doing what they built their reputations doing—trying to putting the best words in the best order—William Safire and William F. Buckley struck me as pretty dreadful writers.
Ah.
My dislike for them isn’t personal, though I guess I had a (minor) run-in with Safire at least. After retiring from his New York Times column, Safire took a sinecure in the District of Columbia as head of a small foundation dedicated to promoting neuroscience. I interviewed for a sub-entry-level editorial job there once, and after two hour-long interviews with his underlings had to sit down one more time with “Mr. Safire” himself. His office was bigger than the rest of the building, I think; it had about a thousand books, and a fireplace, and leather couches. We settled down on one, him in a cardigan, me in a skinny tie, and he started the interview by mocking my facial hair. “What’s with the beard?” My eyebrows went up. He smirked. He followed up by asking what I’m pretty sure are illegal questions about my marital prospects and the steadiness of my relationship with my girlfriend.
I realized quickly he was just twisting my titty—prodding me to see if I was uptight—and though I ended up turning down the job, I walked out of there pleased to have met him. I never thought to hold a grudge. In fact, having encountered him only through his writing before, my estimation actually improved after he made fun of me. I never met Buckley, but from everything I’ve seen and heard he probably would have delighted in eviscerating me, too. (Something about my manner says I can take it, I guess, and something about my look or carriage or gait says I deserve it.) Probably Buckley would have done it a little more deftly if we’d ever sat down to chat—more epee than hammer; it’s hard to imagine Buckley’s gambit being making fun of my beard, however much he might have hated it—but my viscera probably still would have spilled out on the floor all the same, and I probably still would have liked Buckley for it.