How to recognize bad prose

I haven't read it. Am curious to read responses.

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Here are the opening paragraphs:

Quote:

Robert Langdon awoke slowly.

A telephone was ringing in the darkness--a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.

Where the hell am I?

The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram:

HOTEL RITZ PARIS.

Slowly, the fog began to lift.

Langdon picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Monsieur Langdon?" a man's voice said. "I hope I have not awoken you?"

Dazed, Langdon looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 A.M. He had been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the dead.

"This is the concierge, monsieur. I apologize for this intrusion, but you have a visitor. He insists it is urgent."

Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled flyer on his bedside table.

http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385504201&view=excerpt

For starters, what does the monogram on the bathrobe have to do with the telephone ringing? Further, Langdon wakes up slowly but does considerable observation before he answers his telephone.

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When I read it, I understand that the professor, specialized as he is in the symbolism of old items, will probably quickly recognize items for what they are. The bathrobe comes into his view and shows the label of the hotel, thus giving him the information he needs to understand where he is.

But I do see yuor point... Any more such examples?

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I can't speak from some definitive standard of prose, of course, but for me the weakest moments come when Brown narrates in meticulous detail things that don't need to be tracked so closely. I also find a lot of the descriptions a bit clumsy. For example (the underlining is mine):

Quote:

Tiptoeing across the creaky wood floor to his closet, Sophie peered on the shelves behind his clothing. Nothing. Next she looked under the bed. Still nothing. Moving to his bureau, she opened the drawers and one by one began pawing carefully through them. There must be something for me here! As she reached the bottom drawer, she still had not found any hint of a doll. Dejected, she opened the final drawer and pulled aside some black clothes she had never seen him wear. She was about to the close the drawer when her eyes caught a glint of gold in the back of the drawer. It looked like a pocket watch chain, but she knew he didn't wear one. Her heart raced as she realized what it must be.

The "next" seems unnecessary to me; if it was put there to convey a sense of chronology, it's redundant because the sequence of events would have been clear even without it.

He doesn't need to specify that "she opened the drawers" because that is implied by her pawing carefully through them. I also don't think we need to be told that she pawed through them "one by one"--she wouldn't paw through them all at once, would she? Finally, it doesn't add any dimension of meaning to say that she "began" pawing through them rather than simply "she pawed through them." Unless something is going to happen to interrupt the pawing, we don't need to be told that the pawing "began."

Generally, when I encounter the construction "As she _________," I expect the independent clause to be an event rather than a general state of being--i.e. the word "as" implies that something occurred at the same time that something else occurred. Here, "As Sophie reached the final drawer" is (so the prose suggests) simultaneous with "not found a hint of a doll"... but not finding a doll was the case before, during and after her "reaching the final drawer"; it's not an event that was simultaneous with the opening of the drawer, but a condition under which she opened the drawer. Presumably what he means is that by the time Sophie reached the final drawer, she had not found a hint of a doll.

"She was about to the close the drawer when her eyes caught a glint of gold in the back of the drawer." Having "the drawer" stated twice is kind of clunky. It would have sufficed to say "She was about to close the drawer when her eyes caught a glint of gold in the back," or even "She was about to close the drawer when her eyes caught a glint of gold."

"Her heart raced as she knew what it must be." Here's a case where Brown does use the "As she ________" construction properly (to my ears!), but the event he describes is redundant. We don't have to be told why Sophie's heart races--or if we do, it'd have been better to make us wait and discover it with her rather than having it spelled out for us.

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One could write a book about bad prose! It does take one aback to see what gets published these days. In "Mulligan Stew", Gilbert Sorrentino explored the idea that characters in novels have independent existences, in fact are kind of like film actors. These characters meet up when they are not being used in novels and discuss their lives. One guy has been doing a lot of work as dark, swarthy types in murder mysteries. Another has been doing a lot of thriller work. They all hate - above all - authors. "Don't you hate it", says one, "when they make you make love without getting undressed?". "Or when you have to kiss without removing your cigarette first!" says another. "And I hate it when I have to work my brows furiously". One character went out for a beer in Chapter 3 of a novel, and was never seen again!

Since 1982, the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the prestigious Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest in which bad writers from around the globe compete pen-to-pen in a no-commas-barred fight to create the worst possible opening sentence for a novel.

An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" Beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

The 2005 winner was Dan McKay from Fargo, ND.

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.

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Keep in mind, I'd love to be a successful, published author. Brown is and I'm not.

Meanwhile:

Quote:

Tiptoeing across the creaky wood floor to his closet, Sophie peered on the shelves behind his clothing.

When was the last time you tiptoed? "Walking softly" is one thing, prancing on one's tiptoes is quite another.

Note the trouble with tenses: While Sophie is tiptoeing across the creaky wood floor, she's also peering at the shelves behind the clothing. X-ray vision?

Every noticed that these days floors are more likely to creak in novels than in real life?

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Noddy24 wrote:

While Sophie is tiptoeing across the creaky wood floor, she's also peering at the shelves behind the clothing.

Not even peering at the shelves, mind you; peering on them... whatever that means.

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In the apartments here, the upstairs floors crack instead of creak.

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Noddy gave us

Quote:

A telephone was ringing in the darkness--a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.

I got as far as "squinting". I almost stopped at "tinny" but I do like to give things the benefit of the doubt.

Now-a triplet of decent openings.

"I was in bed with the catamite when the Archbishop called to tell me the President had died."

Or-

"It must have been a Thursday night when I met her for the first time--at the dance hall. I reported to work in the morning, after an hour or two's sleep, looking like a sonambulist."

And-

"riverrun past Eve and Adam's,from swerve of shore to bend of bay,brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram,violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea,had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themelse to Lauren's County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venisoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe."

Bit more effort there eh?

If you feel your intwowlingents is been inshunted it's shoite.

It's probably just a matter of taste or hype or tales of the un-natural.

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"riverrun past Eve and Adam's,from swerve of shore to bend of bay,brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram,violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea,had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themelse to Lauren's County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venisoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe."

I have never been able to commit the time and resources to master this novel.

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You don't need to master it Ed. You just open it anywhere and read ten lines or so and you're in a good mood for the rest of the day. A full page tires me out.

The experts have been trying to read it for years. Last I heard they are no further on.

Personally I think it is a buttender to the tribe who think they understand human nature but I'm open to suggestions.

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In 1968, I saw a movie of Finnegan's Wake. Only English language film I've seen in which English subtitles were employed (not faithfull to the spoken). Perhaps you are right. I used to read Ulysses in random snatches, until one day I decided to read so many pages per day, right to the end.

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Quote:

Perfect. Now all that remained was to close and lock the door. Leaving the box on the ground for the moment, he grabbed the metal door and began to heave it closed. As the door swung past him, Vernet reached up to grab the single bolt that needed to be slid into place. The door closed with a thud, and Vernet quickly grabbed the bolt, pulling it to the left. The bolt slid a few inches and crunched to an unexpected halt, not lining up with its sleeve. What's going on? Vernet pulled again, but the bolt wouldn't lock. The mechanism was not properly aligned. The door isn't fully closed! Feeling a surge of panic, Vernet shoved hard against the outside of the door, but it refused to budge. Something is blocking it! Vernet turned to throw his full shoulder into the door, but this time the door exploded outward, striking Vernet in the face and sending him reeling backward onto the ground, his nose shattering in pain. The gun flew as Vernet reached for his face and felt the warm blood running from his nose.

I'm reminded of a great line from Urinetown:"Nothing can kill a show like too much exposition."

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Ed wrote-

Quote:

I used to read Ulysses in random snatches,

Gee-that's quite witty.

Do you know the story of Joyce sitting staring at the page in the typewriter for ages and one of his companions said-

"What's the matter James,can't you get the words?"

And he replied-

"I've got the words.It's the order to put them in."

My quote is from memory so it probably isn't exact but it gives the gist.

May be you need to slow down your reading of FW to somewhere near that sort of pace. Speed reading can become a habit. A bit like walking past the paintings in the Louvre at 4mph eating a burger so you can go home and tell everybody how artistic you are.

Flaubert is similar. Henry Miller shot it fast and you can read it fast. In fact sometimes you can get racing.

Dylan has-

"An' the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind"

in One Too Many Mornings.

If Joyce was seeking a sound inside the readers mind he would seek to make it musical. He was an accomplished singer and musician.

That's roughly how I see it anyway but people think I'm crackers.

Dan Brown was seeking money on the principle that it isn't possible to underestimate the intelligence of the general public. That "colossal" eh? If you got past "tinny" and overcame "squinting" you hit the buffers with "colossal".

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I still dip into Ulysses randomly, but I also know the whole of the work as a consequence of reading it from cover to cover. As for speed reading, I never mastered that.

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I'm dutch. I'm simple. MY english is not up to Shakespearean Standards, and most definetely up to that monstrosity of a paragraph you quoted. Could you please tell me who wrote that, so I can make every effort possible never to lay my hands on any of his/her works?

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I certainly can namjie

It was Mr James Joyce, of blessed memory,who,as I understand it, had a sense of humour which the educational system in Holland has been unable or unwilling to communicate to its customers.

Did you think that the quoted paragraph betrayed signs of incompetence in the use of language or were you just not prepared to give it the attention it deserves.

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Actually, as a dutch person my english is not on par with that of the native english readers and writers I have seen so far on this forum.
When I said monstrosity of a paragraph, I was commenting ony my lack of understanding of that paragraph. I just don't get it. This, I am sure, has nothing to do with the level of competence of Mr. Joyce, as I hold (almost) all writers of older literature in high regard. In fact, I should probably try harder to wrap my mind around it, but I fear this is, in fact, the part where my first statement above starts to apply.
As a matter of fact, the mere question I asked that started this thread should give you a decent idea of my ability to understand and appreciate the written words of the english language. Both seem to lack... greatly.

As far as the educational system in Holland is concerned, I will not try to defend it, considering the sorry state it is in, but I will state that any lack of appreciation of the humor of said Mr. Joyce cannot be blamed on the quality of education I received in high school, but more on my inability and/or disinterest at that time in digesting the material thus delivered.

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Shapeless-

Where's that quote from?

It's incredible.

Did somebody crush some trees up to lay that out for us or are you taking the piss?

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How to recognize bad prose

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