Subject
Re: Melville, Goethe, and more
From
Date
Body
I feel so strong a disagreement with some of the following that my first
instinct is to suspect that I misunderstood it. But, casting this momentary
doubt to the side, I hurry on with my first impressions. For repetitiveness
and indiscriminate prolixity one can do no better than the very British
Dickens. Fielding may have experimented somewhat with slowing a narrative to
a crawl with helpless verbosity but he was merely one of Dickens¹ many
teachers in the long long repetitive repetitive repetitive sentence,
paragraph and page. And Dickens was determined to leave all his teachers
choking in a cloud of his dust.
The American Samuel Clemens came far enough along behind Dickens to be eager
to go and hear him read, more as entertainment than as a living example of
literary genius. And this lapse in time and taste between writers from two
nations may be why Clemens could send a runaway boy and a black slave down
800 miles of the world¹s greatest river, at that period (and maybe even
today, as well) in less time than it takes a Dickens¹ character to go 30
miles by coach. That is because Dickens feels called upon to describe every
stump, every fence, every cow, every pretty little girl, drunken sailor or
sinister old granny that the coach passes, and describe, as well, what the
person in the coach thought about all of them, no matter how major or how
obscure the character in the coach may be.
As for Mr. Twigg¹s three versions of the lines from PF, here we have
excellent proof paradoxical as it may be, considered with what I have said
of how, in poetry, less is often not only not more , it is often even less
than it may seem, and certainly less than one needs.
For now, leave VN¹s lines as they are and look at edited version #1. Where
is our proof that the weather is inclement and the time is night? Without a
blurry shape, we lack crucial information on the portentous event about to
take place, and the the mood of this essential moment. Now look at the
second line of version #1. We no longer know the temperature, which is a
key ingredient in the conditions. We need the crackling of that thin sheet
of ice that has spread on the swamp surface, web-like from reed bed to reed
bed.
Version #2, of course, needs little discussion. It is merely a lessen in
how one turns poetry into doggerel. If Dick, Jane, and Spot were poets, this
is what they would write.
In fact, prolixity, too much detail, too much repetition (usually
unintentional and careless) are not characteristics of the writing of any
nation or of any time. They are eternally and universally the signs of a
writer who either doesn¹t trust his or her readers, or nervously fears that
his or her whole baroque house of cards will blow to pieces unless they
themselves micromanage every moment of the reader¹s attention.
Andrew Brown
On 1/5/07 5:21 AM, "Chaswe@AOL.COM" <Chaswe@AOL.COM> wrote:
> Some of the characteristics of American writing in general seem to me to be
> repetitiveness, and indiscriminate prolixity. Why use five words, when fifty
> will do: never leave anything out, which obviates accusations of undemocratic
> selectivity. Although VN is not repetitive, and is very discriminating, he is
> nevertheless prolix.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
instinct is to suspect that I misunderstood it. But, casting this momentary
doubt to the side, I hurry on with my first impressions. For repetitiveness
and indiscriminate prolixity one can do no better than the very British
Dickens. Fielding may have experimented somewhat with slowing a narrative to
a crawl with helpless verbosity but he was merely one of Dickens¹ many
teachers in the long long repetitive repetitive repetitive sentence,
paragraph and page. And Dickens was determined to leave all his teachers
choking in a cloud of his dust.
The American Samuel Clemens came far enough along behind Dickens to be eager
to go and hear him read, more as entertainment than as a living example of
literary genius. And this lapse in time and taste between writers from two
nations may be why Clemens could send a runaway boy and a black slave down
800 miles of the world¹s greatest river, at that period (and maybe even
today, as well) in less time than it takes a Dickens¹ character to go 30
miles by coach. That is because Dickens feels called upon to describe every
stump, every fence, every cow, every pretty little girl, drunken sailor or
sinister old granny that the coach passes, and describe, as well, what the
person in the coach thought about all of them, no matter how major or how
obscure the character in the coach may be.
As for Mr. Twigg¹s three versions of the lines from PF, here we have
excellent proof paradoxical as it may be, considered with what I have said
of how, in poetry, less is often not only not more , it is often even less
than it may seem, and certainly less than one needs.
For now, leave VN¹s lines as they are and look at edited version #1. Where
is our proof that the weather is inclement and the time is night? Without a
blurry shape, we lack crucial information on the portentous event about to
take place, and the the mood of this essential moment. Now look at the
second line of version #1. We no longer know the temperature, which is a
key ingredient in the conditions. We need the crackling of that thin sheet
of ice that has spread on the swamp surface, web-like from reed bed to reed
bed.
Version #2, of course, needs little discussion. It is merely a lessen in
how one turns poetry into doggerel. If Dick, Jane, and Spot were poets, this
is what they would write.
In fact, prolixity, too much detail, too much repetition (usually
unintentional and careless) are not characteristics of the writing of any
nation or of any time. They are eternally and universally the signs of a
writer who either doesn¹t trust his or her readers, or nervously fears that
his or her whole baroque house of cards will blow to pieces unless they
themselves micromanage every moment of the reader¹s attention.
Andrew Brown
On 1/5/07 5:21 AM, "Chaswe@AOL.COM" <Chaswe@AOL.COM> wrote:
> Some of the characteristics of American writing in general seem to me to be
> repetitiveness, and indiscriminate prolixity. Why use five words, when fifty
> will do: never leave anything out, which obviates accusations of undemocratic
> selectivity. Although VN is not repetitive, and is very discriminating, he is
> nevertheless prolix.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm