- (Read Danish version here.)
I have a confession. I am a snob. Not the kind of snob one might usually think of, but an arrogant word snob—someone who haughtily wrinkles their nose at inferior words, rejecting them like the princess in the fairy tale The Swineherd with a dismissive “not good enough.”
For example, I could never, under any circumstances, write this sentence: “He scratched his butt with his iPod while scarfing down cheese puffs and egg sandwiches.” But why not? Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with letting a character in a novel eat an egg sandwich or scratch themselves with an iPod. Yet, I’m too much of a snob to use those words. They’re simply pava.
García Márquez and the Taste of Pava
I first encountered the term pava in the book The Fragrance of Guava: Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez. As the title subtly hints, the book consists of a series of conversations with the magical realist García Márquez. In one of these conversations, Márquez talks about the phenomenon where certain things, words, events, or behaviors possess a quality of tastelessness.
He calls this phenomenon pava. For Márquez, plastic flowers are pava, especially if they have built-in lights. Plastic flowers are kitsch—low and pretentious, something trying to be what it isn’t. Having plastic flowers in your living room is pure pava, as is having a crocheted cover on your TV, tying ribbons around candles that are never lit, or using clip-on ties and velcro bow ties.
Reality TV shows featuring intellectually challenged young people binge-drinking, such as The Kings of Marienlyst, are pava. Saying “fucking nice” or “we’re going all out” is pava.
The Curse of Being Overly Sensitive to Words
In literature, certain words contain so much pava that I simply can’t use them. They make the text ungraceful, emitting an unpoetic stink. I hate to admit it, but I suffer from a sort of prudishness—a hypersensitivity to words—and I’ve considered seeking therapy for it. After all, the last thing a writer wants is to be aesthetically constrained.
Words You Can’t Hang on the Wall
Take the word butt. I can’t bring myself to use it in a novel. The word is simply too ugly, both visually and phonetically, and it carries connotations that I can’t place in my writing. It’s what Gertrude Stein once described to Hemingway as “inaccrochable”—like a painting you can’t hang on a wall. Butt is a tear in the eye. Tush and rear end don’t work either—the former is too cutesy, the latter too euphemistic. If a man touches a woman’s butt, I’d rather write my way around it by describing the movement of his hand.
No “Banging” Allowed in My Books
I also can’t use the word bang. It’s the ugliest word I can think of for having sex. In fact, there aren’t really any sex-related words I feel comfortable using. Intercourse is too clinical, making love too romanticized, screw and shag too comical. If I need to write a sex scene, I prefer to leave it implicit.
Farts and Egg Sandwiches
This also applies to bodily functions. I can’t use the word fart. Characters in my novels simply don’t fart. Nor could they ever dream of scarfing something down. I’m constantly surprised by how many Danish authors allow their characters to scarf or chomp. To me, those are astoundingly ugly words. On the other hand, my characters may slurp, smack, or belch—for some inexplicable reason, those words aren’t pava to me.
Certain food terms also fall under my pava ban. I could never use the word egg sandwich. I can’t explain why. Egg and sandwich are perfectly fine words on their own, but together, they’re pure pava. Egg sandwiches actually appear frequently in Danish literature. Klaus Rifbjerg’s books are filled with egg sandwiches; he’s a maestro at portraying them so vividly that you can almost smell the lunchtime air at the Metropolitan School in the 1950s.
Brand-specific food names are another issue. Eating Roquefort is fine, but you can’t “grab a Cheese String.” You can have a hamburger, but definitely not a Whopper. Most supermarket-brand names are pava: Matadormix, Snøfler, Cheesy. Meanwhile, Crémant de Bourgogne is perfectly acceptable. I told you I was a snob.
Turning On the Computer
Many time-specific terms are also pava. They need to be steeped in the language for a long time before achieving canonical status. I think it’s because they quickly become dated. Consider how impossibly old a novel feels if the main character owns a Walkman. When I recently reread American Psycho, Patrick Bateman didn’t seem quite as slick with his Walkman as he did in the ’90s. It’s a bit like Michael Douglas in Wall Street no longer being cutting-edge with his absurdly large cell phone.
Even worse is if a character turns on their fancy “computer machine” and inserts a five-inch “floppy disk.” Laptop is a no-go, hairdryer is borderline, while computer is nearing canonical status—though I still don’t completely like it. The word retains a faint taste of plastic. Time-sensitive slang is always pava: watching a “thriller” in the “cinema” is strictly forbidden, no matter how “cool,” “awesome,” or “sick” it is.
Pava Is Pava
As you can see, my pava words are highly subjective—and in many cases, I’m likely the only one who perceives them as such. Many other writers have no pava at all. They just write, filling their pages with characters who screw on IKEA tables. And to be honest, I love that they dare to “give zero fucks” about pava.
Christina Hagen, in her impressive short story collection Queen of Sex, describes a man’s, um… attached genitalia in mortifying detail. Kristian Himmelstrup boldly titles his novel Angelina’s Ass. Kirsten Hammann, in Look at Me, uses all my pava words in cascades. And Klaus Rifbjerg dazzles with his elaborate egg-sandwich aesthetics.
I can’t rule out the possibility that I’ll one day dare to write a novel with pava words. I often feel tempted because it’s limiting to have them—it’s like wearing a corset that’s a bit too tight. But when that day comes, I’ll really let loose and “go all out”!
