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Ok.
What do you think about a sentence like this:
And trying to find a comfortable position for my head on a brushed nylon headrest at the back of this big coach presently jammed at a crossing despite the green light, I reflect once again that when, and this would have been early April, Vikram Griffiths said to me, clearing his throat and rubbing his fingers across a polished Indian baldness, as he will, or in his sideburns, or in the down of hair behind his thick neck, and then adjusting his spectacles, as he is doing at this very moment some way up the central corridor of this hideous modern coach, leaning stockily, dog nipping his ankles, over the shoulders and doubtless breasts of a young girl, gestures one presumes he makes out of nervousness and a desire to give people the impression that what he is saying is important and exciting - a dramatized nervousness is perhaps what I mean, a nervousness become conscious of itself and then tool of itself in a never-ending and self-consuming but always coercive narcissism - when Vikram Griffiths said to me, swallowing catarrh, though without his dog that day, Jerry, boyo - because Vikram is not just an Indian but a Welsh Indian, the only Indian ever to speak Welsh, he claims - Jerry, boyo, we are going to appeal to Europe - clearing his throat again - and we would much appreciate your support, what I should have done, of course, was to laugh in his face, or produce some more polite gesture but of similar subtext, as for example enquiring, Europe? or just, Where, sorry? as though genuinely unaware that such an entity existed.
I'll tell you what I think.
In your ordinarily-sized book, that's four fifths of a page.
Four fifths of a page is too much for one single sentence unless you're German and writing academic non-fiction, where you have to write sentences of that length in order to be taken serious. This is supposed to be fiction. And enjoyable to read, according to the blurbs. And intriguing. I'm sorry, but a sentence that's taking four fifths of a page to get to a period - not to a point, because there isn't really a point - isn't intriguing, it's just annoying. No, that's not style. You're not James Joyce, for Eru's sake, and I am not Ulysses helplessly meandering among the word-islands in hopes of finally reaching my home, i.e., the period at the end of the universe. If I wanted to read sentences like that, I could just listen to my own thoughts. Every Creative Writing teacher, every editor would kill you for a sentence like that, or at least metaphorically flay you. You're hardly supposed to write paragraphs of that length, let alone sentences. And here I worry about my sentences being too long-winded. And this isn't the only time this happens in the damn book. If I didn't have to read it for class, I would have thrown it in some distant corner for the kittens to play with just because of the bloody run-on sentences. However does an accumulation of long, rambling sentences like this get shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize?
I am by now suspecting that they're sitting there reading books and talking to each other. "Did you get that sentence?" - "Not really, no." - "Me neither." - "It must be really deep then." - "It must! Let's nominate it!"
And books like that get praised by the critics, while good fantasy books are torn apart just for being fantasy?
I like Ursula K. LeGuin's invention of "maturismo".
- Work was surprisingly busy today; suddenly, everybody had something that had to be done right now immediately this very moment. Which wouldn't have been a problem if those people hadn't made so much drama and stress about things that could comfortably done in my time - except two of the four people wanted to leave work early because it's Friday...
still, I wonder what our department needs secretaries for if all they do is let the students do their work.
Word of the Day:
Dampferzeugerschlämmentsalzungsanlagenumwälzungsansteuerung
What do you think about a sentence like this:
And trying to find a comfortable position for my head on a brushed nylon headrest at the back of this big coach presently jammed at a crossing despite the green light, I reflect once again that when, and this would have been early April, Vikram Griffiths said to me, clearing his throat and rubbing his fingers across a polished Indian baldness, as he will, or in his sideburns, or in the down of hair behind his thick neck, and then adjusting his spectacles, as he is doing at this very moment some way up the central corridor of this hideous modern coach, leaning stockily, dog nipping his ankles, over the shoulders and doubtless breasts of a young girl, gestures one presumes he makes out of nervousness and a desire to give people the impression that what he is saying is important and exciting - a dramatized nervousness is perhaps what I mean, a nervousness become conscious of itself and then tool of itself in a never-ending and self-consuming but always coercive narcissism - when Vikram Griffiths said to me, swallowing catarrh, though without his dog that day, Jerry, boyo - because Vikram is not just an Indian but a Welsh Indian, the only Indian ever to speak Welsh, he claims - Jerry, boyo, we are going to appeal to Europe - clearing his throat again - and we would much appreciate your support, what I should have done, of course, was to laugh in his face, or produce some more polite gesture but of similar subtext, as for example enquiring, Europe? or just, Where, sorry? as though genuinely unaware that such an entity existed.
I'll tell you what I think.
In your ordinarily-sized book, that's four fifths of a page.
Four fifths of a page is too much for one single sentence unless you're German and writing academic non-fiction, where you have to write sentences of that length in order to be taken serious. This is supposed to be fiction. And enjoyable to read, according to the blurbs. And intriguing. I'm sorry, but a sentence that's taking four fifths of a page to get to a period - not to a point, because there isn't really a point - isn't intriguing, it's just annoying. No, that's not style. You're not James Joyce, for Eru's sake, and I am not Ulysses helplessly meandering among the word-islands in hopes of finally reaching my home, i.e., the period at the end of the universe. If I wanted to read sentences like that, I could just listen to my own thoughts. Every Creative Writing teacher, every editor would kill you for a sentence like that, or at least metaphorically flay you. You're hardly supposed to write paragraphs of that length, let alone sentences. And here I worry about my sentences being too long-winded. And this isn't the only time this happens in the damn book. If I didn't have to read it for class, I would have thrown it in some distant corner for the kittens to play with just because of the bloody run-on sentences. However does an accumulation of long, rambling sentences like this get shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize?
I am by now suspecting that they're sitting there reading books and talking to each other. "Did you get that sentence?" - "Not really, no." - "Me neither." - "It must be really deep then." - "It must! Let's nominate it!"
And books like that get praised by the critics, while good fantasy books are torn apart just for being fantasy?
I like Ursula K. LeGuin's invention of "maturismo".
- Work was surprisingly busy today; suddenly, everybody had something that had to be done right now immediately this very moment. Which wouldn't have been a problem if those people hadn't made so much drama and stress about things that could comfortably done in my time - except two of the four people wanted to leave work early because it's Friday...
still, I wonder what our department needs secretaries for if all they do is let the students do their work.
Word of the Day:
Dampferzeugerschlämmentsalzungsanlagenumwälzungsansteuerung
