The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Secondary Colors: Three Essays by Alexander Theroux
Joseph Allen O'Rear

Alexander Theroux. The Secondary Colors: Three Essays. Henry Holt, 1996. 312 pp. $19.95.

I’m unsure whether my not having read Mr. Theroux before this collection of essays places me at an advantage or disadvantage; I can only guess that an appreciation of his work must be an acquired taste. In this follow-up to his similar The Primary Colors, Mr. Theroux expostulates at length—great length—upon the colors orange, purple, and green. The three sections of the book are more catalogs than essays, which is not necessarily a criticism; their “measureless intensity and wayward poetic enchantment” (see book jacket) are often compelling, and certain passages are inarguably breathtaking. Still, Mr. Theroux’s persistently condescending tone and, in places, fierce mean-spiritedness make this “feast for the senses” suitable for nibbling only, a few pages at a time. Reading this book is not unlike listening to a post-dinner party boor: while part of you is enthralled by his unbounded erudition, another part is ready to bolt to your feet, throw your cocktail in his face, and hate yourself for ever falling in with any group of people so ready to tolerate his company.

Theroux’s rhetorical approach—purportedly in the tradition of Mon-taigne and Plutarch—is simple; for each of the three colors he assembles a mélange of associations, connotations, and facts historical and otherwise that are in any way (any way) related to that color. It’s a conceit that demands example: “A subjective list of things that seem orange to me are: the human knee, owls, fan lights, the word Dixie, Winnie the Pooh, laughter, old classrooms, the poems of Eugene Field, face-to-face coitus, the whole concept of bread, patently futile stupidity—like the dumb giants of story-book fame—cashmere, Bix Beiderbecke’s cornet wailing on ‘Riverboat Shuffle’ . . .” and so on, for another half page or so. Endless lists of pure desiderata, sometimes set in striking juxtaposition. Of purple: “Cordovan leather, severe shock, oyster shells, gasoline, varicose veins, clay mud banks, the Liebestod of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and the sun shining through a person’s paper-thin ears.” Such passages engage all our senses and subtlest proclivities; put simply, they delight.

But go back to that first example. To that “patently futile stupidity” part. It’s when you start taking in thicker sheaves of the text (again, inadvisable) that you start to notice the atmosphere of condescension thickening. The book’s steady accretion of insults and self-aggrandizement are less the stuff of “satire and strong opinion” (again, refer to the book jacket) than just plain nastiness. Certain fifties’ TV celebrities are “woefully dopey,” a pronouncement swiftly followed by Theroux’s list of “bad writers” (Rod McKuen, Maya Angelou, and Ayn Rand). Is it unintended irony when, in this same paragraph, we are told that purple is the color of ostentation? I’m not sure which I found more tedious: Mr. Theroux’s Tourettish name-dropping or his ceaseless reminders following translated passages from Greek and Latin: “my translation.” And I could never quite figure out why he finds the Brady Bunch vapid, yet holds the Simpsons in near veneration. I’ve never found myself reading so aggressively in my life, every minute factual error (orange is not the color of Disney’s Goofy, but Pluto!) made me want to take the author by the throat and sneer, “Yeah, well you’re wrong, Mr. Smarty Pants!” Really, each time I put the book down, I felt like I wanted to go out and pummel somebody.

But perhaps the above says more about me than Mr. Theroux. As mentioned, there are in this book passages of brilliant, even sublime prose. And I’m sure there are many readers who won’t blink an eye at Mr. Theroux’s sarcasm passing for irony. I’d just like to know who they are. [Joseph Allen O’Rear]

Editor’s Note: The official position of the Review of Contemporary Fiction is that sarcasm is one of the great underused, as well as undervalued, rhetorical methods and its use need not be a failed attempt at irony. In fact, our official position is that irony is oftentimes a failed attempt at sarcasm.


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Secondary Colors: Three Essays by Alexander Theroux Joseph Allen O'Rear Alexander Theroux. The Secondary Colors: Three Essays. Henry Holt, 1996. 312 pp. $19.95. I’m unsure whether my not having read Mr. Theroux before this collection of essays places me at an advantage or disadvantage; I can only guess that an appreciation of his work must be an acquired taste. In this follow-up to his similar The Primary Colors, Mr. Theroux expostulates at length—great length—upon the colors orange, purple, and green. The three sections of the book are more catalogs than essays, which is not necessarily a criticism; their “measureless intensity and wayward poetic enchantment” (see book jacket) are often compelling, and certain passages are inarguably breathtaking. Still, Mr. Theroux’s persistently condescending tone and, in places, fierce mean-spiritedness make this “feast for the senses” suitable for nibbling only, a few pages at a time. Reading this book is not unlike listening to a post-dinner party boor: while part of you is enthralled by his unbounded erudition, another part is ready to bolt to your feet, throw your cocktail in his face, and hate yourself for ever falling in with any group of people so ready to tolerate his company. Theroux’s rhetorical approach—purportedly in the tradition of Mon-taigne and Plutarch—is simple; for each of the three colors he assembles a mélange of associations, connotations, and facts historical and otherwise that are in any way (any way) related to that color. It’s a conceit that demands example: “A subjective list of things that seem orange to me are: the human knee, owls, fan lights, the word Dixie, Winnie the Pooh, laughter, old classrooms, the poems of Eugene Field, face-to-face coitus, the whole concept of bread, patently futile stupidity—like the dumb giants of story-book fame—cashmere, Bix Beiderbecke’s cornet wailing on ‘Riverboat Shuffle’ . . .” and so on, for another half page or so. Endless lists of pure desiderata, sometimes set in striking juxtaposition. Of purple: “Cordovan leather, severe shock, oyster shells, gasoline, varicose veins, clay mud banks, the Liebestod of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and the sun shining through a person’s paper-thin ears.” Such passages engage all our senses and subtlest proclivities; put simply, they delight. But go back to that first example. To that “patently futile stupidity” part. It’s when you start taking in thicker sheaves of the text (again, inadvisable) that you start to notice the atmosphere of condescension thickening. The book’s steady accretion of insults and self-aggrandizement are less the stuff of “satire and strong opinion” (again, refer to the book jacket) than just plain nastiness. Certain fifties’ TV celebrities are “woefully dopey,” a pronouncement swiftly followed by Theroux’s list of “bad writers” (Rod McKuen, Maya Angelou, and Ayn Rand). Is it unintended irony when, in this same paragraph, we are told that purple is the color of ostentation? I’m not sure which I found more tedious: Mr. Theroux’s Tourettish name-dropping or his ceaseless reminders following translated passages from Greek and Latin: “my translation.” And I could never quite figure out why he finds the Brady Bunch vapid, yet holds the Simpsons in near veneration. I’ve never found myself reading so aggressively in my life, every minute factual error (orange is not the color of Disney’s Goofy, but Pluto!) made me want to take the author by the throat and sneer, “Yeah, well you’re wrong, Mr. Smarty Pants!” Really, each time I put the book down, I felt like I wanted to go out and pummel somebody. But perhaps the above says more about me than Mr. Theroux. As mentioned, there are in this book passages of brilliant, even sublime prose. And I’m sure there are many readers who won’t blink an eye at Mr. Theroux’s sarcasm passing for irony. I’d just like to know who they are. [Joseph Allen O’Rear] Editor’s Note: The official position of the Review of Contemporary Fiction is that sarcasm is one of the great underused, as well as undervalued, rhetorical methods and its use need not be a failed attempt at irony. In fact, our official position is that irony is oftentimes a failed attempt at sarcasm.

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