I've always disliked what I refer to as "pretentious" prose - overly wordy, self-aware - because to me, it never served the story well.
I think that's where I personally draw the line: Faulkner's writing, for example, sends me to a dictionary every time, but I never consider it overwrought because to me it fits the story exactly.
I also favor lyricism and elegant simplicity over syllable count, so that's another one of my biases.
The first seems to be an issue of narrative voice. Would the front-and-center narrator of Thackeray's Vanity Fair fit your description of self-aware? Even pompous? I'd agree on the first count, but not the second. My impression is that Thackeray was in full control of that narrator.
But sometimes prose can seem too clever--it pulls one's attention from the story to itself, like the little kid who dances around the living room in the middle of a family party yelling "Lookit me! Lookit me!" It's cute the first time or two, but gets to be irritating really fast when one is trying to talk to all the others.
True. Well, author presence is something that irks me. That is, while I want the feeling, at the back of my mind, that the author is in control of the story, I don't want to sense meddling. And that really comes into play with regard to the writing. Overdone writing will pull me out of a story faster than anything else will.
That is, it doesn't bother me if the narrator is self-aware. It bothers me if the book reads as though the author is acting as puppeteer instead of, I guess, a conduit. As if the author is very conscious of his/her use of clever words.
That's an interesting point. Voice can be such a difficult thing to define. It's kind of in the category of the chemistry of attraction--how this person finds X to be gorgeous, that person finds X repulsive, and that person over there finds X to be unmemorable.
I never actually made it into the Matrix (kept falling asleep) but I take your point as I too am a very visual reader. I remember everything in image. Noticing prose is only something I've begun doing in the past couple of decades because my prose was so terrible and I couldn't figure out why when my images were so vivid in my head. So I can notice it, but like you, I often run orthogonal to what I perceive as general tastes. (And that's what makes it so interesting when others do explain what they see/read/respond to.)
I'm glad some others have already mentioned Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, because those were the very names that came to my mind while reading your original post at BVC. Those names were the conclusion of a thought/sentence which began, "I suppose it all depends on whether someone wants a reading experience with Ernest Hemingway or
( ... )
This is the 'three bears' approach to prose. 'Pedestrian' brings to mind, stodgy and plodding, i.e. "This porridge is too cold." 'Lapidary' seems to be overdone, so, "This porridge is too hot." But 'effective' hits the middle ground. "This porridge is just right." And the reader gobbles it all up.
I'm pleased to note that a lot of your readers seem to prefer invisible prose that lets the story come to the fore. I don't read for the prose style, but I will notice if it's clunky and unimaginative or, at the other extreme, florid and overblown. I want the prose to support the story not climb all over it.
That's true. That's actually why I like these sorts of discussions. I never expect a definitive list to emerge--what I like seeing is how differently a text operates on various readers.
I find it really difficult to define a borderline between 'lapidary' and 'purple'. In truth even the worst purple prose has a few gems. I find some writing to be too self-consciously lyrical. I recently read 'The Gift' by Patrick O'Leary (Tor 1997) which without a doubt is beautifully written, but I found myself resenting the prose at the same time as admiring it because it was keeping me from the story. You're right, it's all very personal.
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I think that's where I personally draw the line: Faulkner's writing, for example, sends me to a dictionary every time, but I never consider it overwrought because to me it fits the story exactly.
I also favor lyricism and elegant simplicity over syllable count, so that's another one of my biases.
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But sometimes prose can seem too clever--it pulls one's attention from the story to itself, like the little kid who dances around the living room in the middle of a family party yelling "Lookit me! Lookit me!" It's cute the first time or two, but gets to be irritating really fast when one is trying to talk to all the others.
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That is, it doesn't bother me if the narrator is self-aware. It bothers me if the book reads as though the author is acting as puppeteer instead of, I guess, a conduit. As if the author is very conscious of his/her use of clever words.
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Pedestrian maybe could be better termed unmemorable.
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I think this is widely true of most readers, regardless of age.
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I'm pleased to note that a lot of your readers seem to prefer invisible prose that lets the story come to the fore. I don't read for the prose style, but I will notice if it's clunky and unimaginative or, at the other extreme, florid and overblown. I want the prose to support the story not climb all over it.
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