Prose
Today's BVC riff is on grammatical oopsies.
While I was writing that up, I was thinking about transparent prose. Over at nineweaving they've been talking about these matters.
It doesn't surprise me that writers (poets, really) like sovay and nineweaving find references to transparent prose objectionable. I don't know if anyone else's brain works this way, but for purposes of discussion, here's how I see the distinction between transparent prose and what I call high style (which could be lapidary prose, or poetic . . . I resist 'lyrical' because I grew up with that phrase meaning something like 'self-consciously emulating sentimental poetry'):
Transparent prose moves me smoothly through the sensurround and movie of the story. When I read transparent prose I am not aware of being a reader sitting with book in hand. I'm inside the story world, and the text is the medium to experience the story in a kind of dreamtime. Transparent prose falters when there's a grammar oopsie that blurs meaning, or maybe a series of repeated words that causes me to falter, or maybe some term is used that throws me right out of the world, for example, the characters in an epic fantasy saying "Okay" to one another.
Not every reader is going to be bothered by that okay--we all have different baggage clustered around words. For an extreme example, when I was around fourteen, I read Lord of the Rings for the first time . . . but for a few weeks beforehand, I did not want to read it. I was with a junior high friend in her attic, I was writing while she was deeply absorbed in that book, sometimes exclaiming. She went downstairs for a moment, and I glanced at the book, and to my horror saw the word "eleven" used as an adjective. No! Someone stole my "eleven!" The word had profound meaning for me . . . later, when she finished the book and insisted I read it, I asked if the writer had stolen my elevens (remember, I'm fourteen) and she said, "No, that word was elven." WHEW! Nobody else would have been jolted by that!
Just as someone whose grammar is shaky might not notice the consistent spelling of all right as alright, or misuse of "whom"--and some readers will read right past tons of sentence scaffolding while others will notice it and grimace, or else sort-of notice it and wonder why the pace is so slow even though this is an action sequence.
I think the high style is a different reading experience, in which the sound of the words runs parallel to the story movie. For example, when I read nineweaving's books, I hear the narrative read aloud, an invisible narrator speaking the prose. (On two of her works, the voice is even identifiable: Dame Maggie Smith.) The story itself is one step distant from me. I read very slowly, because my brain can only do one thing at a time, and sometimes it wants to savor the words, the way I like to savor the poetry of people like ericmarin or Seajules or shweta_narayan just to name a few. Then, when I've processed the words, I might go back and read it again, this time focusing on the story. Or somethings I shift between the two, but I never sink right down, myself becoming the invisible watcher as the movie happens around me.
As in what makes transparent prose, these things can differ. Not all those celebrated for high style appeal--Writer X's 'high style' seems forced, at times awkward, juttering me to a stop as I try to figure out what the heck that sentence means. The signals are a jumble, like stepping out of a quiet elevator into a mall full of chaotic noises and flashing lights and weird smells. When I read past for story, I find thin characters, no insight--trickery and kewl set decoration, rather than wisdom. Certainly no grace. Yet the reader next to me is just loving every syllable.
So I do think the two things exist--and there are combinations, that is, poetic writing that is so subtle it immerses one in story, and becomes transparent--Kipling operates that way on me. Passages of Patrick O'Brian at his best. Nabokov. Sayers at her best. But someone else's combination will be other writers.
This is why I enjoy reading critical reviews, or analysis--finding out how others read a text I've been through. What they saw and how they saw it. (But I resist critical analysis that tells me what to think.)
While I was writing that up, I was thinking about transparent prose. Over at nineweaving they've been talking about these matters.
It doesn't surprise me that writers (poets, really) like sovay and nineweaving find references to transparent prose objectionable. I don't know if anyone else's brain works this way, but for purposes of discussion, here's how I see the distinction between transparent prose and what I call high style (which could be lapidary prose, or poetic . . . I resist 'lyrical' because I grew up with that phrase meaning something like 'self-consciously emulating sentimental poetry'):
Transparent prose moves me smoothly through the sensurround and movie of the story. When I read transparent prose I am not aware of being a reader sitting with book in hand. I'm inside the story world, and the text is the medium to experience the story in a kind of dreamtime. Transparent prose falters when there's a grammar oopsie that blurs meaning, or maybe a series of repeated words that causes me to falter, or maybe some term is used that throws me right out of the world, for example, the characters in an epic fantasy saying "Okay" to one another.
Not every reader is going to be bothered by that okay--we all have different baggage clustered around words. For an extreme example, when I was around fourteen, I read Lord of the Rings for the first time . . . but for a few weeks beforehand, I did not want to read it. I was with a junior high friend in her attic, I was writing while she was deeply absorbed in that book, sometimes exclaiming. She went downstairs for a moment, and I glanced at the book, and to my horror saw the word "eleven" used as an adjective. No! Someone stole my "eleven!" The word had profound meaning for me . . . later, when she finished the book and insisted I read it, I asked if the writer had stolen my elevens (remember, I'm fourteen) and she said, "No, that word was elven." WHEW! Nobody else would have been jolted by that!
Just as someone whose grammar is shaky might not notice the consistent spelling of all right as alright, or misuse of "whom"--and some readers will read right past tons of sentence scaffolding while others will notice it and grimace, or else sort-of notice it and wonder why the pace is so slow even though this is an action sequence.
I think the high style is a different reading experience, in which the sound of the words runs parallel to the story movie. For example, when I read nineweaving's books, I hear the narrative read aloud, an invisible narrator speaking the prose. (On two of her works, the voice is even identifiable: Dame Maggie Smith.) The story itself is one step distant from me. I read very slowly, because my brain can only do one thing at a time, and sometimes it wants to savor the words, the way I like to savor the poetry of people like ericmarin or Seajules or shweta_narayan just to name a few. Then, when I've processed the words, I might go back and read it again, this time focusing on the story. Or somethings I shift between the two, but I never sink right down, myself becoming the invisible watcher as the movie happens around me.
As in what makes transparent prose, these things can differ. Not all those celebrated for high style appeal--Writer X's 'high style' seems forced, at times awkward, juttering me to a stop as I try to figure out what the heck that sentence means. The signals are a jumble, like stepping out of a quiet elevator into a mall full of chaotic noises and flashing lights and weird smells. When I read past for story, I find thin characters, no insight--trickery and kewl set decoration, rather than wisdom. Certainly no grace. Yet the reader next to me is just loving every syllable.
So I do think the two things exist--and there are combinations, that is, poetic writing that is so subtle it immerses one in story, and becomes transparent--Kipling operates that way on me. Passages of Patrick O'Brian at his best. Nabokov. Sayers at her best. But someone else's combination will be other writers.
This is why I enjoy reading critical reviews, or analysis--finding out how others read a text I've been through. What they saw and how they saw it. (But I resist critical analysis that tells me what to think.)