How to recognize bad prose

Well namjie-

If that post is your second language you are doing pretty good. I would imagine that very few people could write anything like that in a second language.

I certainly couldn't. I'm very impressed.

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najmelliw, please don't worry about it -- many native English speakers cannot understand Joyce (especially Finnegan's Wake) and many who can just cannot be bothered. It has little to do with intelligence or education.

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Spendius,

Most people tend to mutilate a language less when they try to make a statement. Usually, semi-oficial, quasi-intellectual phrase forming is a sign of a persons desperate attempt to conceal their lack of knowledge.
I could have said: "Since I slept through high school, I failed to pick up anything meaningful said over James Joyce. I can barely understand the paragraph, so I won't even try to make sense out of his books."
See? Very Happy

Tico - I'm not worried when I don't understand something. I simply do not understand r. Joyce. I do not understand most poetry. I do not understand quantum physics. There are many more things I don't understand, which is nice, since that means I can spend the time of life I have left to try and fill those gaps of knowledge as much as I can. Some gaps of knowledge will remain just that, though. Mr. Jouyce has just claimed one of those permanent gaps, I think Smile

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spendius wrote:

Where's that quote from?

It's incredible.

The block quote is also from Da Vinci Code. The follow-up quote is from Urinetown, a musical that had a brief but successful run in 2000-01.

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One way to recognise bad prose is to compare it with something good-

Quote:

He was the high priest of Tanith, and it was he who had educated Salammbo.

"Speak!" he said. "What will you?"

"I hoped--you had almost promised me--" She stammered and was confused; then suddenly: "Why do you despise me? what have I forgotten in the rites? You are my master, and you told me that no one was so accomplished in the things pertaining to the goddess as I; but there are some of which you will not speak. Is it so, O father?"

Schahabarim remembered Hamilcar's orders, and replied:

"No, I have nothing more to teach you!"

"A genius," she resumed, "impels me to this love. I have climbed the steps of Eschmoun, god of the planets and intelligences; I have slept beneath the golden olive of Melkarth, patron of the Tyrian colonies; I have pushed open the doors of Baal-Khamon, the enlightener and fertiliser; I have sacrificed to the subterranean Kabiri, to the gods of woods, winds, rivers and mountains; but, can you understand? they are all too far away, too high, too insensible, while she--I feel her mingled in my life; she fills my soul, and I quiver with inward startings, as though she were leaping in order to escape. Methinks I am about to hear her voice, and see her face, lightnings dazzle me and then I sink back again into the darkness."

Schahabarim was silent. She entreated him with suppliant looks. At last he made a sign for the dismissal of the slave, who was not of Chanaanitish race. Taanach disappeared, and Schahabarim, raising one arm in the air, began:

"Before the gods darkness alone was, and a breathing stirred dull and indistinct as the conscience of a man in a dream. It contracted, creating Desire and Cloud, and from Desire and Cloud there issued primitive Matter. This was a water, muddy, black, icy and deep. It contained senseless monsters, incoherent portions of the forms to be born, which are painted on the walls of the sanctuaries.

"Then Matter condensed. It became an egg. It burst. One half formed the earth and the other the firmament. Sun, moon, winds and clouds appeared, and at the crash of the thunder intelligent creatures awoke. Then Eschmoun spread himself in the starry sphere; Khamon beamed in the sun; Melkarth thrust him with his arms behind Gades; the Kabiri descended beneath the volcanoes, and Rabetna like a nurse bent over the world pouring out her light like milk, and her night like a mantle."

"And then?" she said.

He had related the secret of the origins to her, to divert her from sublimer prospects; but the maiden's desire kindled again at his last words, and Schahabarim, half yielding resumed:

"She inspires and governs the loves of men."

"The loves of men!" repeated Salammbo dreamily.

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A prose-oriented review of Dan Brown's book:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html

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I have not read The Da Vinci Code, or any of Brown's novels. Thank you for the link, Noddy -- I enjoyed that and can now hold my head high and admit to being the 5th person who can make the claim.

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I haven't read it either, and no desire/intention to, but how does that make us special?

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Thank you for the link Noddy! I must be reading those books with blinders over my eyes, because I just don't get these things until someone points them out to me. But I reckon I'm gonna remember 'Renowned curator Jacques Sauniére' for a Looong looong time to come.

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Mame wrote-

Quote:

I haven't read it either, and no desire/intention to, but how does that make us special?

It doesn't make us special. We are in the vast majority. It's the readers who are special. Not many people are prepared to buy empty plastic bags and you have to be quite special to not only engage in such activity but to go around telling everybody expecting them to be impressed.

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I'm a many-faceted snob, including a literary snob--although I read my share of "escape fiction" (aka trash). I rank people who read The Da Vinci Code above total-and-complete non-readers on a scale of the intellectually curious.

In an ideal world all of those millions of lovely dollars would have been spread around for "more deserving" authors. This is not an ideal world.
Would we really want a publishing industry that worked by fiat; a publishing industry in which a committee of "experts" decided which authors should be printed and how much each author should be paid?

Democracy and consumer-driven economics make for a messy literary world, but this messy world is both colorful and diverse.

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Yup, I freely admit to being a literary bum. It's just like good wine. You can pour me a 80$ bottle after a 1$ bottle, and I wouldn't know the diff.
Before you wonder, I have read Wuthering Heights, War and Peace, MacBeth, a Midsummer Nights dream, The Comedia Divina, Anna Karenina, and Dostojevski's the Idiot as well. Among others. I just find it incredebly hard to differentiate 'good literature' from 'bad trash'.

I must be missing some vital genes in my genepool.
Naj.

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I haven't read all of the responses yet, just the first page. But what seems obvious to me is that Brown is a terrible prose stylist who writes much like a high school sophomore completing a creative writing assignment. He overuses modifiers, for one thing. Describing Jacques Sauniere as a "renowned curator" or an editor as "Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman" are sure signs of dilettantism. His sentences are simple and straightforward, again reminiscent of someone who is completing a routine writing assignment.

That said, however, you have to give the man credit for having plugged into the consciousness of his audience with his plotting. Not that the plot of TDVC is anything more than a clever scavenger hunt, but it is fairly clever.

Conclusion: Brown is a truly crappy writer who sells millions and millions of his crappily written books. That says more about today's readers. of course, than it does about him.

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Quite an interesting topic and intriguing responses. Not that I have, but have you every read "Atlanta Nights?" It is a book purposefully poorly written and currently in print.

Some authors have a natural talent which blazes the trails into history without benefit of editors or "traditional" publishing avenues. Those were the days! Now, there are too many people dwelling on this tiny planet avidly pursuing monetary gain above all else, including an honorable name to be remembered.

Many badly written prose could use a professional copy-editor, but anyone familiar with the cost of such luxuries?

me agapi

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One easy way to recognize bad prose is to read the prose aloud. When the written word doesn't match the patterns of natural speech, it is bad.

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I haven't read Da Vinci code. I haven't because I read another book by Dan Brown before I'd heard of Da Vinci code and was annoyed by his writing. I don't remember the title of the other book, but it was set in Rome, a favorite city of mine that I revisit as often as I can through many types of books.

I didn't keep notes on why I didn't like Dan Brown's writing, but the example on page one of this thread brings some of my sense of it back. The man doesn't love words, not the sound of individual words nor the flow of them in groups on a page. I think he has a tin ear for word sounds, a lame way of setting and developing scenes, and writes at speed to get past plot points. The writing was jarring to me, calling attention to itself for lameness. This doesn't hurt him in the effort to put out a best seller, since there are other criteria for that.

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Cliche seems to be a problem.

Never begin a story with someone waking up to a phone or an alarm.

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[quote="ossobuco"

I didn't keep notes on why I didn't like Dan Brown's writing, but the example on page one of this thread brings some of my sense of it back. The man doesn't love words, not the sound of individual words nor the flow of them in groups on a page. I think he has a tin ear for word sounds, a lame way of setting and developing scenes, and writes at speed to get past plot points. The writing was jarring to me, calling attention to itself for lameness. This doesn't hurt him in the effort to put out a best seller, since there are other criteria for that.[/quote]

Wow, I love this review. I haven't read it other, but I'm inclined not to just because of what you said. I couldn't abide that kind of mangling.

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Yep, this is what I hear everywhere. And this is why I started the thread. I love books, I love writing, but I'll never succeed, because even though I recognize and underscribe the comments others make, I never seem to be able to point them out on my own.
I am unable to analyze books in a critical manner like that. Is there a way to learn this?

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Naj--

Read widely and constantly.

You've "learned" to recognize poorly prepared food and ugly curtains. With enough exposure to good prose, you'll be able to recognize bad prose.

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How to recognize bad prose

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