I recently finished reading Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel. I found the story to be fascinating and I was very impressed with her grasp of language.
Until that grasp became so strong it was like a choke hold. My beef with this book was that Seigel clearly has the ability to write an enthralling book, but used so much muscle in the vocab department that it tipped the scale from impressive to irritating. The language and sentence composition became so ornate that I found myself wallowing through the text instead of gliding though it. Her lovely story was overshadowed by the flower in her words. Seigel is plainly talented and without doubt highly intelligent.
But, in some cases, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
9 comments:
Ahh! I agree - the language shouldn't get in the way of the story. I have no quarrel with great craftsmanship but it must be fairly unobtrusive or it seems like the writer is just showing off, which makes me want to say: Okay, I'm impressed, but can you just tell the story please?
The thing that was so frustrating about this story in particular was that she clearly had the skill to nail it, but she ended up with overkill.
So true. I always go for story over flowery prose. Maybe that's because I can't do flowery prose myself? Or maybe that's the other way around? Or maybe I just ask too many questions? :)
Oh, bravo, Hoodie! Great commentary.
When I was in a writer's group, there was a retired English teacher. He wrote fiction. Everything he wrote was so over the top in the verbiage department!!
His arguement was that he used big words so people could learn. i.e. - if they didn't know the word, they would look it up and learn new words!!!!
Excuse me, I want to be entertained here - not educated. Does this box of bon bons look like a dictionary?
I used to do a daily vocab word on this blog and was thinking of bringing it back.
I guess I can thank Seigel for building up my list.
Now that would be a good thing to do. I like things like that! After all, we could all use a vocab boost - in the right place!
I totally see how an overly thriving language can kill the story itself...unless there's no story and the aim is to let the author's vocabulary outshine every readers' imagination....but should this really be a point in writing ???
I don't think so.
Szelsofa - I think many writers do think that's the point in writing.
And if that's your thing, go for poetry, not prose, I say.
A very insightful post, Hoodie. A balance should be sought though, I think, because story alone is not enough.
Post a Comment