Horrible Writing In Otherwise Good, or Tolerable, Books

[Gadarene]

Oh, you.

(The sentence from Northanger quoted above is not the model of lucidity.)

[Maeglin]

@Gadarene

Oh, you.

(The sentence from Northanger quoted above is not the model of lucidity.)

Read it out loud.

[Maeglin]

Though on reread, I missed Unauthorized Cinnamon’s exhortation to acquire Austen’s style. My opinion in her case is withdrawn.

[Gadarene]

@Maeglin

Read it out loud.

I don’t generally read books out loud. Also, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t clunkily phrased. Also, I figured out what it meant. Also, I like Austen. Also, shut up.

[Hunter_Hawk]

@Maeglin

Not my impression, mon ami. The posts complain about Austen’s “byzantine sentence structure”, Tolkien and Eddison’s “turgid” prose, and how Wuthering Heights is a “template for soap operas”.

Hey, just for the record, I am so not complaining about Eddison’s prose; I think he’s an amazing writer. But folks who do think that that style is turgid would be horribly turned off by it.

And after reading that Tristram Shandy quote above, I may have to bump it higher on my need-to-read-this list; it’s been sitting on my shelf for a while (I picked up a copy after Tim Powers recommended it), but hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet.

[Ludovic]

@Max_Torque

Good to know there’s a word for it. The first example of this that comes to mind is a science fiction book I read years ago, Hellspark by Janet Kagan. Apparently, Ms. Kagan’s very favorite word was “serendipity.”

My contribution to this observation is Ayn Rand and “Brusque”(ly).

[Anaamika]

@Maeglin

It is very hard for me to believe that people are honestly and unabashedly considering writers like Austen, Bronte, Eddison, Tolkien, and James “horrible”. They are all both expert craftsmen/women and genuine artists for reasons that are critically demonstrable. Their mastery of the English language is unmistakable and they are all perfectly comprehensible.

What they all have is flavor. They do not write for the least common denominator. Not liking the flavor is fine. Every author is not for every person. Life is short, so read whatever you like. But to call something horrible just because you don’t like the flavor is pretty much opinion at its most pernicious.

:dubious: First of all, as someone said, most of us are not calling them horrible. Just portions of their writing.

Secondly, there is no reason to put anybody up on a pedestal merely because somebody else says they should be there or even if everyone else says they should be there. I have read a lot of the people on your list, and they have some great ideas, but sometimes they do have horrible writing.

[Telperien]

@Maeglin

Not my impression, mon ami. The posts complain about Austen’s “byzantine sentence structure”, Tolkien and Eddison’s “turgid” prose, and how Wuthering Heights is a “template for soap operas”.

I can pick out about 40 unfinished lines in Vergil’s Aeneid and show that he clearly had not gotten around to polishing them yet. These are isolated instances. The posters here seem to be referring not to singular imperfections but aspects of the writing that are as essential to the books as, say, plot and characterization. It is very hard for me to wrap my mind around liking Jane Austen despite her style. Her artistry is absolute: if she wrote the White Pages of 1791, I would probably like it.

I’m not a fan of Emily Bronte. I admit my dislike of her work led me to go off-topic.

[Scissorjack]

@AuntiePam

Heh. You think that’s bad. Check out the first paragraph of Wuthering Heights:

“1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.”

This attitude that any prose less transparent than say Harry Potter is bad writing and that the literary output of the entire 19th century ought to be thus written off because it’s “too long” really irks me. What on earth is wrong with that as prose? Advances plot, establishes setting, sketches character, introduces new character, sketches him, and hints at future shenanigans: it’s tight, economical story-telling. It’s written as a diary entry, and is meant to be read as such: read it aloud and it sings: “a perfect misanthropist’s heaven” is such a lovely phrase. It’s not the author’s fault that Wuthering Heights subsequently became the template for every purple Harlequin romance ever written.

[AuntiePam]

Scissorjack, there’s nothing wrong with the prose in that excerpt – it’s the cockamamie punctuation in the last sentence that I’m complaining about. When I see a comma, I pause. If there’s no reason for the comma/pause – well, it’s like riding in a car with a driver who’s learning how to use a stick shift – stops and starts, herky jerky. Let me out – I’d rather walk.

I managed a few more pages but the punctuation quirks only got worse. I wondered if Bronte was paid extra for colons.

ETA: And I love 19th century literature. Bronte’s the only writer of that era I’ve encountered who punctuates like she’s tossing confetti onto the page.

[davidw]

I loved Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. A truly great read, I couldn’t put it down, and I highly recommend it to everyone. It immediately jumped near the top of my favorite books ever list. But the writing for the sex scenes between Karla and him was just embarrasingly bad.