Ian Williams is available for Media Interviews: IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

Ian Williams

MaximsNews Columnist 

  Chinese Premier Chou En Lai (l.) on his way to a drinking competition with Ian Williams (r., rear) on New Years Eve, 1970. 

Colon Filtration: an Emetic for our Times  

         UNITED NATIONS -  22 January 2005   www.MaximsNews.com / --  Some years ago I picked up the phone and an excited voice, without introduction, blurted out:'I've got the answer! Colonic hydrotherapy!"

A bit bemused, I asked, 'Excuse me -- but what was the question?"

It seems my caller had read one of my articles on the medical and scientific pages of a British daily newspaper and wanted to share his thoughts on an ailment I wrote about. 

His words flashed into my mind as I am in the midst of moving home and completing the most arduous task: re-shelving books. 

I have volumes ranging from review copies not even officially published yet back to tomes dating from 1750, and as I place them on the shelves I notice there is a titular cycle.

The oldest books have names like The discoveries of the large, rich and beautiful empyre of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden citie of Manoa and of the provinces of Emeria, Arromaia and Amapaia and their counties with their rivers, adjoining. 

Try typing that into an Amazon search!

During the centuries between then and now, important books about wide and expansive subjects have short and snappy titles: 1984, Typhoon, Great Expectations, War & Peace and Relativity.

But then I noticed not just colonic irrigation, but a positive colonic inundation in recent titles. 

Every short name for a book now demands a colon followed by a long explanatory subtitle. 

Dogs: how a wild animal became man's best friend except in Korea where they like them for different reasons,

or Sex: how a process for recombining DNA segments in different ways became so much fun, unless you're religious.

Moby Dick or, The Whale as it was first entitled would become,150 years later, 

Moby Dick: one man's worldwide search to lose his archaic religious background and find himself and his soul while carrying out experimental marine mammal research.

I can testify that the new rage for explanatory titles is not author-driven.

I wanted to call my latest book Soldier of Fortune but it became Deserter: Bush's war on military families, veterans and his own past. 

The publisher left me with the impression this title was based on a straw poll of the sales reps, and also that the longer title would render it unnecessary to have a description of the contents on the dust cover. 

This is not how Dickens worked.

Research on this insidious colonic infiltration of the publishing world shows that, apparently, the subtitle proliferated among academic publishers some decades ago and from them the fad has colonized the rest of the industry. 

Academics never use one word where ten will do in a sentence, so it's surprising they eschew titular brevity.

They are writing for tenure.

The arrival of the colon in the mainstream coincided with the development of the internet. 

Now the primary goal is to cram as many key words and buzz words as possible into a title to get customers clicking on this title, instead of another less sticky rubric. 

In a way, this is uncommonly perspicacious of publishers that, as every author knows, are notoriously bad at selling books in general.

Just as the titles get looser and more expansive, so do the books, which are becoming positively Elizabethan in their formlessness. 

I blame blogs (online journals), which are so often the literary equivalent of colonic hydrotherapy: just sitting there and letting it all come out, unrestrained, unfiltered and often just as unpalatable.

From the 18th century onwards books had a structure with beginnings, middles and ends. 

But blogs have helped to return content to the Elizabethan age. 

They are not necessarily about any subject, but about showing off the personality and stream of consciousness opinions of their authors.

This has infected the book world, too. 

Far too many books published now are blogs in print, simply portable versions that you can take to the beach or the bathroom without entangling wires. 

I have coined a new word for them: blooks. 

And I will write about them in my forthcoming bestseller, Blooks: the colonization of the book world by bloggers and their ever-expanding titles and contents. 

My agent awaits your call.

      Email Ian Williams:  IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

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Ian Williams' Weekly Columns in MaximsNews

  Colon Filtration: an Emetic for our Times  22 January 2005

   Aid for the Tsunami Tragedy...  7 January 2005   

   The Right's Assault on Kofi Annan... 22 December 2004   

   "Water, water, everywhere..."  17 December 2004

   The Future of the U.N.  10 December 2004

   William Safire and Kofi Annan... 1 December 2004

   Rice in State Department: World Cut Off...  17 November 2004 

    Money Talks... 11 November 2004

    Turkeys Voting For Christmas -- JOIN CANADA... 4 November 2004

    KIM JONG IL Wants a Vote for the Incumbent Too!  28 October 2004

   President Bush and the Three Little Pigs... 13 October 2004

   When Hypocrisy Can Kill...  7 October 2004

    Bush  - Still A Deserter Safire, still wrong...  15 September 2004

    Bushowulf  -- the Saga   10 September 2004

    Why Lebanon?...  9 September 2004

    Ian Williams Welcomes Republicans to New York...  29 August 2004

    What kind of Veteran?  Calley-type or Kerry-type?  25 August 2004

    Chavez Beating about the Bush...  18 August 2004

    The War Records of Bush and Kerry...  12 August 2004

    Where is Osama Bin Laden?  6 August 2004

    Sudan, To Intervene --  or not to Intervene?  27 July 2004

    Mr. Sharon, Tear Down This Wall!  16 July 2004

    William Safire -- Warped, on Speed, or Just Running Mad  Again?  13 July 2004

    Bosnian U.N. Defender Locked Up  7 July 2004

    The U.N., the U.S. & the I.C.C.  30 June 2004

    The New York Times, William Safire and the United Nations  23 June 2004

    Hastily Contrived, Verbose, and Fudged: Security Council Resolution 1546  16 June 2004

    Is the U.S. Clever Enough to Rule the World?  9 June 2004

    Humor the Beast: the U.S. and the ICC  2 June 2004

    Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?  20 May 2004

    The Solution to the Iraqi Knot  12 May 2004     

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