Perceptions of Prose
I just read Victoria Hoyle’s review of Laird Barron’s collection on Strange Horizons. One particular analysis of a passage struck me as interesting, and I’m reproducing my comment on the review here. What I really appreciated was Hoyt actually picking out examples and using them to justify her reaction to the collection. If I disagree, it might just be that I’m a better “ideal reader” for Barron than Hoyt, which sometimes happens when you are assigned, as in this case, a slate of award nominees and have to comment on each one. On the other hand, she makes a good point that Barron’s audience may be primarily male–I dunno, that’s more for other female readers to say, not me.
I think what you really meant to say is: “I am not the ideal reader for Laird Barron.” On the passage you quote, I appreciated the analysis but believe you could come to different conclusions.
Just to play devil’s advocate, let’s look at the passage again:
“His relentless eyes adjusted by rapid degrees, fastening on a mass of sea-green tarpaulin gone velvet in the subterranean illume. This sequestered mass reared above the exposed gulf of loft, nearly brushing the venerable center-beam, unexpressive in its context, though immense and bounded by that gravid force to founding dirt.”
“Relentless eyes” scanned to me as a “restless gaze” combined with the idea of what he’s seeing is intense, thus “relentless” because he cannot not see it; hyperbolic, perhaps, but acceptable in context. As for “illume,” you can’t actually divorce it from “subterranean”, as in “subterranean lighting”. Which makes perfect sense. “Sequestered” means more or less “separate” in this case, but is a more sinister word and scans better in the sentence, in terms of the rhythm.
As for a center beam being “unexpressive in its context,” I read this as very expressive on Laird’s part, ironically enough. If you’ve ever seen a center beam, a really nice wooden center beam emanates a calm quality, a kind of unexpressiveness–especially, I would imagine in the context of the weird stuff around it.
As for the rest of it, “gravid force” might be a stretch, but it did to me mean quite plausibly “pregnant,” as in bulging downward. “Founding dirt” seems self-explanatory.
In any event, this passage *reads aloud* with a very nice rhythm. I would also say that in the context of certain kinds of stories, you’re going to get prose that *seems* more purple on first glance, or non-functional, but that when you take the time to examine it, does in fact have a function.
In this case, Barron’s approach gets across the strangeness of the situation in a way that “There was a green mass hanging in the half-darkness next to the center-beam” simply could not accomplish.
March 21, 2008 at 11:51 am
What pissed me off was the paragraph at the start, where the reviewer claimed that only one of the works was fantasy, the rest all “speculative fiction”. Which is bullshit. Why should fantasy have such rigid definitions?
March 21, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Jeff, I just wrote a response to your analysis at SH and thought I would cross post here, in the interests of keeping the debate up-to-date in both forums:
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‘I think what you really meant to say is: “I am not the ideal reader for Laird Barron.”‘
Admittedly, yes, all of the above is my own personal opinion and I’m certainly not Barron’s ideal reader. However, and at the same time, I think my criticism had more weight to it than that. I meant more by it. I do honestly believe that Barron is, on occasions, a technically bad writer. That is: he uses the wrong words in the wrong place, he uses too many of them and he often fails to create the atmosphere he is aiming for as a result. He doesn’t do it all the time – there are passages in the collection that are very good indeed – but the times when he does it right only serves to highlight what he does wrong elsewhere.
Saying that, I very much appreciate your different take on the above paragraph. I think you’re pushing the interpretation at times – surely if he means ‘gaze’ he should write ‘gaze’ – but I see your point.
‘In this case, Barron’s approach gets across the strangeness of the situation in a way that “There was a green mass hanging in the half-darkness next to the center-beam” simply could not accomplish.’
It doesn’t have to be either/or, of course, but if given the choice between the redundant baroque phrasings of Barron’s paragraph and the clarity of your suggestion I would always choose the latter.
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Paul, sorry to piss you off! In my own defense, I didn’t claim that only one of the Crawford nominees was fantasy and the rest speculative fiction. Here is what I wrote:
‘None of them, except the book for children, Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce, is unequivocally fantasy, or at least not as a layperson would recognize it.’
I think the most important words in that sentence are ‘uneqivocally’ and ‘layperson’. You have no reason to know this but I myself write about genre from the POV of an interested ‘layperson’. I don’t consider myself to be a genre ‘insider’, in the sense that I read primarily mainstream fiction and only tend to skate on the surface of SF and fantasy, keeping myself informed as best I can. When I wrote that the Crawford included only one book that was ‘unequivocally’ fantasy I meant that convincing arguments could be mounted that the other four books belonged to other genres or no genre. I was also speaking from the perspective of the average consumer in a bookstore, who would find the changeable criteria used by the sf community to mark genre boundaries highly confusing if not esoteric.
More generally, I agree with you that, as readers, we don’t need rigid definitions to define what fantasy (or SF) is. I’m happy to embrace any number of mainstream novels as genre novels, and vice-a-versa. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of categorising fiction as one type or another. However, if we are going to award prizes for books that fall in category ‘a’ (i.e. fantasy) or category ‘b’ (i.e. SF) or category ‘c’ (mainstream) we have to consider what those categories are and how best to use them.
March 21, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Victoria:
You might prefer it, but as a fiction writer I always bridle at the idea of invisible prose being the best alternative. The history of literature is full of amazing examples of the full use of language. When we pretend that just getting to the point *is* the point of fiction, we lose a lot of richness. And I’m not gonna say that Barron’s prose is always under control, just that I appreciate the fact he’s doing something different. I don’t really see fiction as something that is supposed to communicate in the direct way of nonfiction. Barron’s approach–and I can definitely also see your point about overwriting even if I don’t necessarily agree with it–attempts to *encode* a lot more into the paragraph than someone with an invisible prose style would. A lot of layering can be accomplished, and a lot of mood can be conveyed with those kinds of word choices. In a sense, setting is character because almost every story, be it first or third person, is showing you the world from someone’s point of view. Therefore, all of the information you get is colored by that person’s point of view. So that’s another reason why I don’t buy the straight-forward prose argument most of the time. Because fiction writers should be thinking very carefully about their choices in this regard–it’s a missed opportunity otherwise.
But I don’t necessarily get the idea that you don’t like variations in prose, right? More that Barron’s choices klanged for you.
Anyway, I always think that readers who can appreciate multiple styles are stronger for it, and writers who can do the same will always have a wider range of tones and subtlety in their fiction.
Thanks for the measured discussion, Victoria!
Jeff
March 24, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff about Barron’s work. I’ve been a great fan of his fiction since I first read “Old Virginia” in F&SF, choosing that story for YBFH that year, and taking a story by him for that volume every year since. (not to mention publishing his work in SCIFICTION and in original anthologies). I find his prose evocative and atmospheric and I love the way he uses words.
Another point, as a female/feminist reader I just don’t find his depiction of women repulsive as Victoria says she does. His stories creep me out, which is their intent.