Prose

[sartorias]

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

Comments

[bookblather]

someone whose grammar is shaky might not notice the consistent spelling of all right as alright

Oh my God, THANK YOU. That's one of my massive pet peeves in grammar (the other being it's/its), but every time I correct it people act like I'm insane or wrong. I cannot accept it as right, though, and it's really nice to see someone else feels the same way.

Also, the difference between transparant prose and high style is causing me a bit of trouble in my current workshop. I'm writing something that is a very odd cross between genres, and because the story and the worldbuilding are so complicated, I'm sticking to transparant prose. But so far I've gotten at least three complaints that the prose is boring and I should be trying to make it more high style. It's rather annoying.

And finally, stories that manage to combine the two: Angela Carter, every time. Hans Christian Anderson, in some translations and stories. Robin McKinley. I seem to associate that sort of blending of styles with fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales, actually.

[sartorias]

I need to try Angela Carter!

McKinley's prose used to do that for me, the but the last couple of books haven't worked at all in my head.

[windsong5]

I feel the same way. Her earlier books had almost a dream-like quality for me that her later books lack.

[anisosynchronic]

I'm very surprised you haven't read Angela Carter's work! I came across it long long long ago with the paperback of Heroes and Villains, which had a lyrical style. I was happy with the ending of the book, but that was an issue of content, not style! Her short stories were also very lyrical.

[asakiyume]

I recall someone saying somewhere (maybe here, in a different conversation) that what's transparent in one era can sound dated in another. .... I don't take that as an argument against writing transparent prose, and certainly not as an argument for writing mannered prose just for the sake of being mannered, but I do think it's true that writing that put a reader completely and unselfawaredly in a story in one era won't do that for readers in a later era. Which, in fact, can make the transparent prose of one era interesting in a later era: revealing quirks of speech, habits, etc.

Now off to BVC to read about grammatical oopsies :-)

[sartorias]

I think that is true--but then it's true for everything one is used to, from the drive to work (fascinating for a visitor) to foods. Jane Austen's prose is utterly transparent in a good way to me--I forget that new readers to the period may find it difficult.

[asakiyume]

Ha! Good point about the drive to work :D

Yeah, and by train of thought, that makes me start to muse on how changes in perspective can make things interesting....

[azdak]

Jane Austen's prose is utterly transparent in a good way to me

And yet she's one of those authors whose sentences are so beautifully constructed that you can pluck them out of context and savour them on their own ("They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might be"). Kipling - who you also mention - is the same, and I would add Robert Louis Stevenson and Barbara Trapido to my own personal list. People whose writing is utterly transparent, in that your attention isn't diverted from what they're saying by how they're saying it, and yet how they say it is so beautiful and perfect that one can also go into raptures over individual sentences ("He was grey, he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate", fr'instance.)

[jade_sabre_301]

Ah-hahahahaha. Normally I try to write transparent prose that still sounds pretty, but right now I am reserving all judgment on writing or telling people how to write because I'm posting a 36K-word fanfiction written entirely in "High Style" present tense, which is just not me and yet it is me, just sitting there, being...ridiculous. Because not only is it present tense and and relies on things like "never using the hero's name within the narration," you have to read every word in every long paragraph, or else you'll miss something.

And I spent all this effort on a FANFIC. For an obscure fandom, even. I'm grateful that I might have even two readers, because I feel like I'm asking a lot out of your average fanfic reader, and in the meantime my writing is being a complete snob.

and of course I absolutely love it.

we'll see what happens when I get back to regular prose. I do like the distinctions you draw here, and on that note, back to reading Forster.

[sartorias]

Hey, there is some terrific fanfic out there. (And it is a dynamite way to practice some writing techniques!)

[lnhammer]

I sometimes wonder whether people (at least some of them) who insist on the virtues of transparent prose are confusing style with voice, and a so-called transparent style with a non-intrusive narrator.

---L.

[sartorias]

Sometimes I think that is the case, but then the distinctions between those can also blur or sharpen, just depending.

[lnhammer]

Indeed. The distinction between voice and style can be hard to delineate -- and some transparent proseists are clear on the difference. But still ...

---L.

[la_marquise_de_]

I like prose to be what i think of as limpid -- flowing, clear, crisp -- in many senses transparent. My favourite stylist is Rumer Godden, who is crystal clear and who nevertheless has an umistakeable voice, a texture, a bone-deep knowledge of words and their ways.
But what many mean when they say 'transparent' is not this at all. They mean prose which present no challenges, that may lack individuality, indeed -- prose that 'doesn't get in the way of the story'. And this can work, but in many cases this 'transparent' prose is leaden and clunky and, well, basic. it adds nothing, it brings nothing. It just lines up dominoes of plot and topples them. And that doesn't work for me, I want the quirks and the details, the touches of uniqueness, the soemthign that means only this author could ahve written this book.

[houseboatonstyx]

Clunky can sort of work as transparent, constantly reminding me NOT to dwell on the words; rather to keep focus on the 'movie in my head.' Eg Nancy Drew, some Oz.

But what I'd rather call 'transparent' is prose like Emma Lathan's, Anthony's in Xanth, much of Sayers, Manning Coles. Well-bred prose, impeccably grammatical, which firmly avoids calling attention to itself.

Oh, and Arthur Ransome!

[sartorias]

I can agree with a few of those, but Piers Anthony I find utterly unreadable. Diffrent strokes!

[houseboatonstyx]

I've never tried any of Piers Anthony's books except early and middle Xanth. My impression is that they're unusual for him.