Ask my sister. She knows. I have nothing against long-windedness in a writer at all. As long as that long-windedness comes with some kind of purpose and artistry behind it (although she disagrees with me even on this — but then again, perhaps it’s just that the beauty is in my beholding and not hers), I can tolerate just about anything. That’s why I can love Tobias Smollett’s The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Smollett may appear long-winded, but his turn of phrase is so creative and engaging that his long-windedness is hardly noticeable (and to me, only as a sign of his genius and certainly not as a shortcoming in his writing).
And the same goes for the writing of Salman Rushdie – so beautiful and artistic, and yet again, that same sister would give me a hard, “no” on some (most?) of his work.
But I agree with her to some extent, and this when it comes to a writer who just seems to drone on with the trivial – telling me things in such a flat and dull manner that even a short sentence is a brutal slog. This would be Melville, in long sections (and my brother would be able to point them out quite well) of Moby Dick for sure. But I think now, that Joseph Conrad in his book Nostromo could give Melville a run for his money.
No. I think Conrad would lap Melville at this point. At least Melville was trying to advance a knowledge of whaling – something with which Moby Dick was certainly concerned. With Conrad, I can only see his connections (and I’m being charitable here) in perhaps trying to capture the pomposity of the Latin American dictator as powerfully as possible. But, no. He only succeeds in boring me.
And this is disappointing. What started out as a seemingly promising and interesting story quickly lost me, and now I think (about a quarter of the way through it) I’ve reached my limit with the following example. To set this up, I’ve included the first sentence to show you of whom the second speaks. But, oh what a second sentence. Eighty-six words of meaningless prattle:
“On one side, General Montero, his bald head covered now by a plumed cocked hat, remained motionless on a skylight seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded on the hilt of the sabre standing upright between his legs. The white plume, the coppery tint of his broad face, the blue-black of the moustaches under the curved beak, the mass of gold on sleeves and breast, the high shining boots with enormous spurs, the working nostrils, the imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor of Rio Seco had in them something ominous and incredible; the exaggeration of a cruel caricature, the fatuity of solemn masquerading, the atrocious grotesqueness of some military idol of Aztec conception and European bedecking, awaiting the homage of worshippers.”
Read that out loud. By the time you get to the end, you won’t remember what started you. And this far too often proves to be the rule in Conrad’s writing here, not the exception.
Sadly, I’m sure I’ve met my match. I cannot go on. I feel I have no choice but to return this book to the library, leaving the bookmark in place should I ever feel compelled to return to it (I’m sure no one else will check it out until then). I would much rather try to tackle Wallace’s Infinite Jest (especially after yesterday’s post) than go on with Nostromo. Life’s too short for me to be in Conrad right now.
And if any good comes of this unfortunate detour, perhaps it’ll do just to show my sister that even I have standards…
Hahaha! (Since I love Moby Dick, one knows you’re not talking about this sister)
got THAT right! 😀
I actually enjoyed Moby Dick once I read beyond the chapters that explained whaling in great detail. It took me 10 years to finish the book because every time I hit one of those chapters, I’d set the book aside and forget about it (being set aside and forgotten is a worse fate for a book than being disliked according to Fran Lebowitz). Whether months, or in one case, several years, I came back to it out of obligation as an English major to finish the dang thing. Once I passed all of those unpleasant chapters, the book became engaging. Maybe people from Melville’s day found them interesting. They couldn’t turn on a television, so their entertainments could get away with being excruciatingly dull.
If you want to see long sentences, read Faulkner. “Then he tapped the edges even and set the deck out in the middle of the table, under the lamp, and folded his arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward a little on the table, looking at Uncle Buddy, who was sitting at his end of the table with his hands in his lap, all one gray color, like an old gray rock or stump with gray moss on it, that still, with his round white head like Uncle Buck’s but he didn’t blink like Uncle Buck and he was a little thicker than Uncle Buck, as if from sitting down so much watching food cook, as if the things he cooked had made him a little thicker than he would have been and the things he cooked with, the flour and such, had made him all one same quiet color.” (From Go Down Moses)
I love the parts of Moby Dick that aren’t an in-depth look into every aspect of whaling possible. And at least your Faulkner example has verbs in it. It has movement. It’s going somewhere (taking the long way, but still going). Conrad’s sentence above is just a rambling description of a man that adds nothing after the first few words.