The Books/Reading Thread

[Einherjar86]

Pretentious writing is the only thing that saves us from the mediocrities of normal speech and conventional ideological language. Stylized prose is important for making us feel uncomfortable while still providing some means of grasping its content. The quote posted above may be difficult, but it isn't beyond the means of any capable reader to comprehend.

I wouldn't call Dreiser or Dos Passos bad writers, but I wouldn't say they're as particularly challenging as someone like Faulkner, or McCarthy, or Joyce, or Pynchon. There is a place for those kinds of writers, and it does no one any good to call it "bad writing."

All good and memorable art experiments within conventions to a degree without exploding so far beyond the conventions as to be unreadable (as Dak's nifty little piece of "art" above is). There's a delicate balance to working with language in an artistic sense, and for those who read a lot of it and spend time reading about it, writers who manage to work out that balance can be identified. It's why we can say that Joyce's Ulysses exhibits a higher degree of stylized practice and work (yes, work) than Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer.

 

[Dak]

I wouldn't even say it was difficult to read. It was just needlessly long and suggested a reading as if the storyteller were in a game of chicken between his lung capacity and his vocabulary. Endless similes wind up looking like a wall of spit-balled ideas. In contrast, good writing leaves the reader wishing for neither more words nor less.

 

[Einherjar86]

I hate to do this, but I don't think you're qualified to speak on what "good writing" in literary fiction is, especially when you make these kinds of absolutist claims. I'm not saying you can't read a text and think "I really dislike this"; but you're making very authoritative claims on the qualities of writing when, I am fairly certain, you haven't bothered to really study the material. You kind of just assume that your reaction to a text can dictate its status.

Ultimately, all fields, including psychology, come down to a set of expectations and assumptions governing our ability to work within those fields. When you make the accusation that the kinds of writing the literary community designates as "good" merely reflect a bogus collection arbitrary distinctions, you reveal a critique of occupation and/or discipline that can be turned around on any field of practice (including the sciences).

In other words, if your basic anecdotal experience with literature is enough to make grandiose claims concerning its quality, then my anecdotal experience with my own consciousness should qualify me to make grandiose claims concerning psychological practice.

 

[Dak]

Psychology as a discipline/field is ripe for serious criticism, although (obviously) not solely on terms of personal experience.

I don't believe I'm making any claim about that quote that can be reduced to mere subjective taste. I'm not generally a fan of murder mysteries or lawyer dramas, but I don't go around calling Patterson or Grisham shit just because of the genres. Based on the movie version of No Country for Old Men, I'm sure I would enjoy both the book and other things by the author in terms of content, character crafting, etc.

All of that said, past the opening salvo, the structure and content of that quote is an example of how to write poorly. I take it that the "literary community" is not overly concerned with content and structure unless it be "groundbreaking", just like other art communities. There is something to be said for subtle refinement within a set of parameters, instead of smashing about hoping to create some result that some viewer finds to represent something that they think looks like something, like children viewing the disinterested formations of clouds.

It comes as no surprise to me though that poor construction, unbridled use of simile, etc, reigns within all fields which are considered to comprise the "Art" world, given the sort of postmodern/marxist descended garbage that is foisted on undergraduate and graduate students as exemplary and critical material. My wife has been forced to read that type of material for a few semesters now, and in editing her papers I've had regular contact with the source works - the content and structure of which often leave me vacillating between incredulity and disgust.

The greater irony is that business (never mind many teachers) has/have complained about the practical illiteracy and lack of even basic writing skills of college graduates, and so the response has been to double down on "Writing Intensive" classes - classes which focus on exactly the sort of material that lends itself to the problem.

 

[Einherjar86]

Writing intensive classes focus on the distinction between creative writing and critical writing. There are ways to teach writing while studying enjoyable (and challenging) literature that doesn't interfere with the mechanics and clarity of academic writing. It's a matter of class structure, not the material being taught.

Your ultimate dissatisfaction and frustration sounds more like a dismissal of humanities scholarship in general than it does a sound and coherent criticism of writing styles. Even saying how your wife has been "forced" to read such literature betrays your underlying sentiment.

McCarthy does work within conventions while simultaneously challenging others - same as Joyce, Faulkner, Pynchon, DeLillo, etc. It's a matter of studying how this is done and appreciating the subtleties of such writing. Superficial criticisms like "too many ands!" or "unbridled similes!" don't reflect the time and effort spent by literary critics.

 

[Dak]

Writing intensive classes focus on the distinction between creative writing and critical writing. There are ways to teach writing while studying enjoyable (and challenging) literature that doesn't interfere with the mechanics and clarity of academic writing. It's a matter of class structure, not the material being taught.

Your ultimate dissatisfaction and frustration sounds more like a dismissal of humanities scholarship in general than it does a sound and coherent criticism of writing styles. Even saying how your wife has been "forced" to read such literature betrays your underlying sentiment.

Maybe WI classes should do that, but neither my WI classes nor hers (so far) have focused on any such distinctions. In her case, the most recent example was just a series of papers or book excerpts of various art critics and theorists, nearly all of whom wrote in a postmodern fashion with varying amounts of marxist sentiment. Her responsibility was only to provide a summary of each and then a total summary at the end. Nothing about the class provided instruction on quality writing, comparison/contrast in styles, etc. Re: "force": All classes force the students to do whatever is listed in the syllabus if they want a passing grade.

Poor writing assuredly presents a "challenge", but only one similar to the challenge of trying to cross a bog without becoming soiled.

It's a matter of studying how this is done and appreciating the subtleties of such writing. Superficial criticisms like "too many ands!" or "unbridled similes!" don't reflect the time and effort spent by literary critics.

I can appreciate a good turn of phrase and even edify a work without having to proclaim it flawless. Amount of time/effort spent by a person on a given subject or skillset is not automatically equivalent to greater insight or skill. Besides differences in talent (tbpc, not claiming more talent here), the law of diminishing returns can (and in more theoretical/critical pursuits usually does) take effect, even to negative effect, like a band that has run out of ideas and starts turning out much worse material than even their early garage demos (yet with professional polish lipsticking the proverbial pig). The art world specifically has long been in the "newer=better" consumeristic trance, and not insignificantly because of monetary reasons.

I'll agree that criticism of syntax is superficial, but given that the author in question should be able to clean that up, it appears much worse when he doesn't. I won't agree that spitballing similes is something beyond "deep" and "serious" analysis. "Oh this sounds good, let me cram it in there too". It's hamfisted and destroys the impact of the individual similes. Someone who thinks otherwise I would suspect to be the sort of person who loses sight of their ice cream under the toppings, and has so many additives in their coffee it is no longer even recognizable as coffee, and would put so much flair on their apron so as to block sight of the apron, like some actor from Office Space, who laughs and smiles at everything while gaining joy from nothing, sipping that same coffee which is not coffee and eating the toppings which consumed the ice cream.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'll agree that criticism of syntax is superficial, but given that the author in question should be able to clean that up, it appears much worse when he doesn't.

So. There it is.

According to this line of criticism, all writing should look the same because syntactical experimentation is bad.

McCarthy knows when he's making what a writing instructor would call "errors." He doesn't care. So quit complaining. If it offends you so much, then don't read it.

 

[unknown]

Considering I teach grammar, does it reflect negatively on me when I say "y'all" or "gonna" in everyday speech or even when texting? No. That's the beauty of Discourse. It provides individuals with the knowledge of when to use certain conventions. McCarthy knows exactly what he's doing and is doing it intentionally because it's FICTION. Obviously if he were writing a scholarly article, then he would use proper grammar and diction. But literature doesn't warrant those necessities. Rules are arbitrary and change with time (notice how I started the previous sentence with a conjunction? Maybe I'll end the next with a preposition). Proper grammar and good diction are not great criteria to signify "good" literature. If so, Mark Twain would have never been able to publish any of his novels, and god forbid if somebody whose primary discourse isn't Standard Written English wants to write a novel. It's a very prescriptivist outlook on language that is even being eschewed by linguists such as John McWhorter.

 

[no country for old wainds]

^this

obviously great art requires a happy medium between tradition/order and originality/chaos and nobody agrees exactly where the lines are but the extremists on either side are misguided/ignorant and blah blah blah. this debate is like a billion years old.

anyways, my personal feelings on cormac, as a poorly read armchair lit critic, is he gets away with doing certain things that are amateurish by conventional standards because they fit into this whole mythical, primitive, pre-civilised vibe he's got going on. doesn't feel like he's challenging the rules so much as preceding them; a rough-hewn prototype from which they'll later be sculpted, or sth. but maybe that's just me. i'd be lying if i said i've never rolled my eyes at any of his passages, but i'm also a big fan and i think most great artists in history overreach now and again.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I don't think that exempts his prose from criticism. Are you familiar with the essay A Reader's Manifesto? It's an in-depth criticism of a number of modern prose stylists, among them McCarthy.

enjoying reading this ATM. man, i really need some good modern genre fiction.

 

[Einherjar86]

anyways, my personal feelings on cormac, as a poorly read armchair lit critic, is he gets away with doing certain things that are amateurish by conventional standards because they fit into this whole mythical, primitive, pre-civilised vibe he's got going on. doesn't feel like he's challenging the rules so much as preceding them; a rough-hewn prototype from which they'll later be sculpted, or sth.

No lying, I almost said something like this. Not trying to intervene or take any credit; but I definitely think there's something to this.

@unknown: really well-put.

 

[Dak]

On a completely unrelated note, in delving back into scifi paperbacks, is it now common to find serious typeface issues, or maybe is this a publisher specific issue? I don't remember this being a problem a decade ago.

 

[unknown]

Like what?

 

[Dak]

Like what?

’It’s nouung, sir

after zne initial fighting

draped with filthy ban-I ■ers.

Rawne nodded and did<ed his fingers.

There was a really bad instance that I can't seem to go back and find now, and I won't quote the tons of random forward slashes, and substitutions of "d" for "cl". In thinking on it it is probably a publisher issue because I think the particular book these are out of was published in 99.

 

[Summerian]

THE WARS OF THE ROSES SERIES

Half way thru book 2: TRINITY
Ain't bad...
Not about people throwing roses at each other.

 

[unknown]

There was a really bad instance that I can't seem to go back and find now, and I won't quote the tons of random forward slashes, and substitutions of "d" for "cl". In thinking on it it is probably a publisher issue because I think the particular book these are out of was published in 99.

I'd mark the shit out of that book and send it back to the publisher with a note saying, "You need a better copy editor"

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Was at Whole Foods earlier for my beer haul and decided to stop nextdoor at Vroman's. Picked these up for about $5 each ....

Quick question. Why are these hardcovers so much cheaper than the paperback copies? That's almost unheard of in the graphic novel/TPB world.

 

[AllShallFall]

Based on the fact that you were at Whole Foods and Vroman's, you must live in Pasadena. Nice place.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Yup, and i love going to that hipster side of town. It's so relaxing, lol.
You went to PCC a few years back, right?

 

[Dak]

Glenn Beck