The Et Cætera Awards

Over at Three Percent, Chad has been pushing Paul Verhaeghen for some time now. I had initially been very excited about reading Omega Minor, which sounded like a Pynchon-esque historical caterwaul, not least because Verhaeghen is by day a professor of psychology working on cognitive aging. In what free time did he manage to produce a more than six hundred page novel, in Flemish, and then translate it himself into English? (The still-green academic asked himself). After reading the excerpt available on the Dalkey Archive website, however, I became far less enthusiastic—this now sounded like just the sort of hyperbolic sex-crazed narcissism that has kept me away from John Updike. I still may read Omega Minor, out of curiosity—but in the meantime, I propose to establish a new award, to be irregularly announced right here: The Et Cætera Awards For Best Use of The Expression "Et Cætera" Or Any Variant Thereof Without further ado, I confer the first award on Michael Orthofer, for the first use in his review of Omega Minor.