[marsupial]

what you speak of is difference between literature and mere communication. Painting with words is essential in lit even if you do not notice. Maybe Beethoven writes chord progressions leaves it at that?

but in clarity yours is a STEM technical writing approach. Fine for stem, not fine for an English major. Muddy. Very very muddy. Relevant only to the carriage schedule and whether murderer gets gunk on his boots. True often for ersatz writers and professional emails. But mud fog BLEAKNESS gestures here maybe to social decay, anomie, listlessness, an eternal stupor, impotence of characters and so on. This is also communication by painting. The painting has a point for the plot AND your pleasure.

Would you prefer novel by bullet points?

[staticman2]

>what you speak of is difference between literature and mere communication.

So a novel is not literature unless it uses your preferred writing style?

>But mud fog BLEAKNESS gestures here maybe to social decay, anomie, listlessness, an eternal stupor, impotence of characters and so on.

That passage doesn't introduce any "characters". Perhaps Lord Chancellor will turn out to be one of the novel's characters, but that remains to be seen.

> The painting has a point for the plot AND your pleasure.

There's no need to be so confrontational.

Isaac Asimov is nowhere close to being my favorite writer but I offer this for your amusement. In his autobiography "I, Asimov" he talks about his simple writing style:

>Before Pebble in the Sky was published, Walter Bradbury asked me to do another novel. I did and sent in two sample chapters. The trouble was that now that I was a published writer, I tried to be literary, as I had in that never-to-be- forgotten writing class in high school. Not nearly as badly, of course, but badly enough. Brad gently sent those two chapters back and put me on the right track.

>"Do you know," he said, "how Hemingway would say, 'The sun rose the next morning'?"

>"No," I said, anxiously (I had never read Hemingway) "How would he say it, Brad?"

>Brad said, "He would say, 'The sun rose the next morning.'

>That was enough. It was the best literary lesson I ever had and it took just ten seconds. I did my second novel, which was The Stars, Like Dust-, writing it plainly, and Brad took it.

[ethbr1]

Parent was a bit over-confrontational and defensive, but I think it suffices to say that there can be many types of art.

Géricault, Mondrian (early and late), and Standard Highway Signs [0] are all art, but with different goals and paths to getting there.

That an author chooses florid prose doesn't make them superior or inferior to others, aside from the skill with which they wield language.

Some people prefer stop signs. Some like The Raft of the Medusa. Plenty of room for everyone.

[0] https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/kno-shs_2024-release-status/index...

[marsupial]

Interest. I log in after a while and read post. Asimov is amusing to some but few would call literature. That is fine! I enjoy pop filler.

I like cute anecdote, it has certain use, against purple prose. It is a tool, not a Foundation.

The point "say simply" is in short essays DFW, George Orwell politics and the English language, Schopenhauer, however, they do not simply speak simply.

> So a novel is not literature unless it uses your preferred writing style?

I think your error is extreme literal mind. The plot goes in math function and we solve murder mystery by weighing objects on scales and deducing. Certain are meant to be read in such way, and others not. Literature is not.

Above quote is excellent display as it tries say "your definition of literature is idiosyncratic, you are a dictator of definitions" with big L Liberal towards taste. Who's to say smash piano with hammer not better than Chopin, former is postmodern preference there are no elites here.

> That passage doesn't introduce any "characters". Perhaps Lord Chancellor will turn out to be one of the novel's characters, but that remains to be seen.

Lord Chancellor is already character because he exists as a person in story? Regardless, we can speak about characters without their names, even without speaking, that is what I mean.

I have anecdote Umberto Eco Mouse or Rat to match re literal

"In his notes to a recent Italian translation of Moby Dick the translator, Bernardo Draghi, spends three pages apropos the famous opening line, Call me Ishmael. Previous Italian translators put, quite literally, Chiamatemi Ismaele. Draghi remarks that the original opening line suggests at least three readings: (i) ‘My real name is not Ishmael, but please call me so, and try to guess what my choice means (think of the fate of Ishmael son of Abraham and Agar)’; (ii) ‘My name is not important, I am only a witness of a great tragedy’; (iii) ‘Let us be on first-name terms, take me as a friend, trust my report.’"

"Now, let us assume that Melville really wanted to suggest one or more of those readings, and that there was a reason why he did not write My name is Ishmael (which in Italian would be, literally, ‘Mi chiamo Ismaele’). Draghi’s translation reads Diciamo che mi chiamo Ismaele, which could be roughly translated as Let us say that my name is Ishmael. Even though I appreciate the rest of this translation, I cannot but object that (apart from the fact that the Italian version is less concise than the original), with his choice Draghi has inevitably stressed interpretations (i) and (ii), but has eliminated the third one. If Melville wanted to remain ambiguous – Draghi eliminates part of the ambiguity."

How would Hemingway introduce as Ishmael? Call me Ishmael.