I’ve never minded excessive language in books as long as it gets somewhere. I’m quite often long-winded myself. By example, I will always bring up that I don’t mind the flowery language of Tobias Smollett’s Humphrey Clinkr. It really does something for me as I read. Like in the way one could get lost in a maze, it’s an added layer to a book when one can get lost in its language along with the story. “Something’s happening here. Let’s find out what it is.” Perhaps it’s a kind of puzzle within the words to me.
I’ve liked Salman Rushdie for this reason, and the more I think of the title of the book I just finished, the more I can see it. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights means more than the words — and the title gives me a lot of them — it tells me something about the story that I can’t understand until I’ve actually read it.
The funny thing is that I thought I’d read it before, but finally finishing it yesterday I realized it must have been a book I’d taken out of the library but had to take back before getting through it (like Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel, which it seems I’ve taken back at least three times). Here I was, talking it up all along and never getting quite through the book. When I realized that I was almost afraid it would disappoint in the end. Not that it would matter to anyone, but it turned out to be quite good from start to finish. Yes, you may have to like the language of it to really appreciate it all, but I found the book left me quite often amazed at the world Rushdie was weaving for me. I felt like it was the Disneyfication of fairy tales…but in reverse, where it took a more innocent story and wove around it the gruesome “truth.” I could see hints of him getting his inspiration from other legends and tales, but he did a wonderful job of bringing it all together in a story that really blew my mind in spots.
I can’t help but think maybe it’s just me, but I’m fine with that. The book itself didn’t get much of a welcome. Wikipedia tells me it met with mixed reviews. I think some of the worst probably missed the point. But then again, to each their own — maybe they’re looking for something different than wonder and imagination in the books they read.