[foldr]

I just mean that there's nothing inherently sincere about plainness and simplicity. Some people adopt a plain and simple style disingenuously, and others write in a more flowery style out of a genuine aesthetic motive. In French, 100 years ago, the kind of style you're advocating would have been the "marked" case. That is, readers would probably have attributed disingenuous motives to someone who chose to write a history book in the style of spoken conversation.

[dpark]

> * That is, readers would probably have attributed disingenuous motives to someone who chose to write a history book in the style of spoken conversation.*

Okay, but they'd also probably be able to understand it. So, tradeoffs.

[foldr]

I want my clothes to be practical. Some people want this and want everyone else to know it, so they buy really ugly clothes just to prove that they don’t care about aesthetics.

You seem to think that it’s impossible for prose to be aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible at the same time. But in fact, the quoted text is both. If it had been written in a plainer style, I probably wouldn't have bothered reading all of it. So no trade off in this instance.

[dpark]

I find it neither. I find the phrasing off-putting and the content low for the number of words.

[foldr]

If you can't comprehend it, how have you managed to determine that the content is low for the number of words?

[dpark]

Now you're being disingenuous and borderline trolling.

At no point did I say it's literally impossible to read.

[foldr]

You said “Okay, but they'd also probably be able to understand it", which clearly implies that people wouldn't be able to understand the current text. Then you denied that the text was was "comprehensible" ("I find it neither [pleasing or comprehensible]").

I really don't think you can have it both ways on this one. If, contrary to what you've been suggesting, the style only has a minor impact on your ability to understand what is being said, then what's the issue? Why get so worked up about the fact that some esoteric French alchemist writing in 1929 isn't writing in the journalistic style that's currently in vogue?