Wisconsin man's mangled prose takes bad writing prize; says college prepared him

Wisconsin man's mangled prose takes bad writing prize; says college prepared him

Mon Jul 30, 6:39 PM

By Marcus Wohlsen

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Wisconsin man whose blend of awkward syntax, imminent disaster and bathroom humour offends both good taste and the English language won an annual contest Monday that salutes bad writing.

Jim Gleeson, 47, of Madison, Wis., beat out thousands of other prose manglers in San Jose State University's 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this convoluted opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:

"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten per cent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee," Gleeson wrote.

Scott Rice, an English professor at San Jose State, called Gleeson's entry a "syntactic atrocity" that displays "a peculiar set of standards or values." Rice has organized the contest since founding it in 1982.

The contest takes its name from Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" famously begins "It was a dark and stormy night."

Entrants are asked to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Citations are handed out for several categories, including "dishonourable mention" awards for "purple prose" and "vile puns."

Here are some wince-inducing excerpts, characterized by tangential clauses, prosaic inanity and errant punctuation, from the 25th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a literary parody competition sponsored by San Jose State University.

Winner:

"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten per cent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee."

-Jim Gleeson, Madison, Wis.

Runner up:

"The Barents sea heaved and churned like a tortured animal in pain, the howling wind tearing packets of icy green water from the shuddering crests of the waves, atomizing it into mist that was again laid flat by the growing fury of the storm as Kevin Tucker switched off the bedside light in his Tuba City, Arizona, single-wide trailer and by the time the phone woke him at 7:38, had pretty much blown itself out with no damage."

-Scott Palmer, Klamath Falls, Ore.

Other noteworthy submissions:

"LaVerne was undeniably underdressed for this frigid weather; her black, rain-soaked tank top offered no protection and seemed to cling to her torso out of sheer rage, while her tie-dyed boa scarf hung lifeless around her neck like a giant, exhausted, pipe cleaner recently discarded after near-criminal overuse by an obviously sadistic (and rather flamboyant) plumber."

-Andrew Cavallari, Northfield, Ill.

"As the hippo's jaws clamped on Henry's body he noted the four huge teeth badly in need of a clean, preferably with one of those electric sonic toothbrushes, and he reflected that his name would be immortalized by his unusual death, since hippo killings are not a daily occurrence, at least not in the high street of Chipping Sodbury."

-Tim Lafferty, Woking, England

"Danny, the little Grizzly cub, frolicked in the tall grass on this sunny Spring morning, his mother keeping a watchful eye as she chewed on a piece of a hiker they had encountered the day before."

-Dave McKenzie, Federal Way, Wash.

"Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was Polartec 200 (thanks to gene splicing, a diet of force-fed petrochemical supplements, and regular dips in an advanced surface fusion polymer), which had the fortunate side effect of rendering it inedible, unlike that other Mary's organic lamb which misbehaved at school and wound up in a lovely Moroccan stew with dried apricots and couscous."

-Julie Jensen, Lodi, Calif.

"The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, not even a sharp knife, but a dull one from that set of cheap knives you received as a wedding gift in a faux wooden block; the one you told yourself you'd replace, but in the end, forgot about because your husband ran off with another man, that kind of knife."

-Lisa Lindquist, Jackson, Mich.

"As her quivering lips met his, and her eyelashes fluttered softly on his sweating cheek, Dr. Robbins reflected, 'I didn't realize she had upper dentures . . . in fact, her slippery plastic palate reminds me of going down a waterslide that hasn't been properly chlorinated, as evidenced by the distinct nitrous and sulfurous emanations, or could it be sinus trouble?"'

-Philip Bateman, Kenilworth, South Africa

"The droppings of the migrating Canada geese just missed the outdoor revelers at the inaugural Asian math puzzle competition, marking the first time that dung flew over Sudoku Fest."

-Kevin P. Craver, Lakewood, Ill.