EPTRight now, as I write this blog, I'm reading The Counterfeiters by Gide. After reading about 17 books this summer, and I'm hoping to read about 21 before returning to school where my reading will slow to a book a week rather than 2-3, most likely, I have realized that great books often have great prose. The prose in the Le Monde Top 100 books list + the extra books I read tends to be different in a couple ways, and I'm confused on how to construct tight or natural-feeling prose like that in these books.
In some of the books, the prose is archaic. In the The Counterfeiters the prose feels tight, somewhat archaic, and absurdly formal for a ragtag group of kids who can't be more than 18 and just raped some girl (I think? I'm only 30 pages in...). The prose in these books, books that tend to feel ultra-formal, exact a clenching, rough touch on my reading; this kind of prose makes me yearn for latitude, and maybe a little less exactitude. The formality isn't just constraining on the reader, it's constraining on the prose. The feel is more like Oulipo constrained writing, or poetic constraint, except that the constraint occurs because of societal considerations rather than just a choice to constrain oneself. I can appreciate this writing, but I don't want to write "in this manner" - yeah imagine someone saying that constantly instead of "like that" - because it makes the reader feel tense all the time, or at least that's the effect it has on me.
In some of the books, the prose is modern (or ultra-modern if you're David Foster Wallace or Tao Lin). The text feels casual at some points, tense in others, and has a range of emotions and voices that permeate the characters. I enjoy this style more, but it seems so much harder to pull off. The grammar-engineering, the novel style of constructing the novel to interrupt the linearity of it (whether by end note or by asterisk), and even the emotional aspect of the text seem either too simple or too difficult to pull off. In truth, this style seems more for the genius, and less for the experiencialist. Creating prose in the transgressive or post-modern (is it dead yet? Like for real?) style seems so much more fun, but so much more difficult to create exactly what I want. I'm not even talking about adding Oulipo levels of constraint to my writing.
Often times I find that while writing in my journal of ideas for a book, I think of brilliant scenes that could be tear-jerking or cathartic or befuddling or what have you; just as often, I have no idea how I'd write the prose to convey the emotions that surround the images of said scenes in my head. I'm just confused. It seems that all the authors I've read have figured it out. How do I figure it out.
Also, I'll make a real 4k blog soon, when I'm back from Las Vegas. 'Till then, I'd like to thank Micronesia for just generally being a great guy to me; I really appreciate it Micro
. I'd like to thank all the helpful people who comment in my blogs with help or suggestions. Also, special thanks to AuirZ for telling me about Tao Lin (I think that was you) and for suggesting poetry books for me :D. I'll do a real 4k blog soon, but yeah, this will work for now haha.
