Search-and-Replace Amusements

It recently dawned on me that by some fluke I had given the same name--Eli--to minor but significant characters in two pretty different novels. I'm not sure what prompted this--I've only met, I think, one Eli in my whole life and I didn't know him well at all. We worked for the same organization decades ago. So I haven't been naming characters in his memory, or with any particular thoughts about him beyond that he was proof of living Americans possessing this name. But I kind of like the name, so it worked well for my character Sara's presumed father in my forthcoming novel In Search of the Magic Theater.

However, the Eli character in the novel I wrote last fall isn't intended to be the same person, so as the name Eli isn't exactly as common as, say, Dave or Ben or Michael, I felt I really had to change this character's name. Not that I would never name another character Eli, but if I do, I want him to be entirely distinct and obviously not the same Eli. After some fretting and briefly considering changing him to Eliott (and I've had at least two friends named some spelling of this name), I settled on Ira. We'll see if that sticks.

I then had to do the search-and-replace, which is always fraught with danger. It's best to be very cautious running search-and-replace. And so here's what I found in searching the full document rather than going to the end where the character Eli actually entered the story...

People in this novel, especially the protagonist, are constantly feeling things. Note that eli in feeling! While the two narrators in In Search of the Magic Theater also have significant feelings, I'd be surprised if the word comes up quite as often in that novel. Their feelings are largely emotional, whereas the protagonist of the other novel experiences quite a few physical sensations as well.

The words religion and religious also came up a lot in my search for Eli. This was quite a surprise as religion doesn't play a particularly large role in the story. But maybe it plays a larger role than I had thought.

Believe and belief were very frequent. Not generally in relation to religion, but my protagonist does have her share of beliefs, and also disbeliefs, and characters say things like "Can you believe it?"

Relief and relieved also crop up a certain amount.

Delightful appears, but much less often.

Elicit, traveling, peeling, reliably, relics, evangelical, candlelight, celibate/celibacy, eligible, likelier/likelihood, canceling, reliance, delivering, and Queen Elizabeth I of England were the other Eli-containing words that appeared, most of them only once except for traveling, celibate/celibacy, and elicit. And no, the novel is not about celibate clergy nor is it set in the English (or any other) Renaissance.

This was kind of fun and enlightening, and very unexpected. And worth giving a try to even in fiction that doesn't need to change an Eli to another name.

In Support of Independents: Beasley Books

In the spirit of supporting independent bookstores during a time of crisis, I offer you the Summer 2020 catalog for Beasley Books Chicago-based Beasley Books offers "more than 300 items in diverse fields: Modern First Editions, Mysteries, African American Literature, Radicalism (including titles on the Civil War in Spain,) Jazz & Blues and Art & Photography." Beasley Books also has a special interest in and connection to Surrealism.

Gendered Descriptions of Bodies in Fiction!

There's a very cool visual essay on The Physical Traits that Define Men and Women in Literature over at The Pudding. Erin Davis, with the help of illustrations by Liana Sposto, has run a computer analysis of 2,000 books published between 1008 and 2020 (the majority published after 1900; roughly 35% have at least one female author). Books were selected for cultural relevance and included "New York Times best sellers, Pulitzer Prize nominees and winners, Man Booker shortlisted books and winners, books frequently taught in American high schools and colleges, and books that frequently appear on Best Of lists."

Sad to say, the results show very stereotypical tendencies in terms of gender description. But go take a look, it's much more fun to see how Davis and Sposto have shown the results!