Word Count

[aBIGsheep]

I don't like wordy books. Its either I'm just lazy or I'm maybe just a direct person, but I don't like novels that span 10 pages describing a leaf *coughlordoftheringsuncough*. I'm exaggerating of course, but I'm sure someone else feels the same as me.

I'm gonna gonna stick with my chum Thoreau and say that short & sweet is the way to be.

[Charles Darnay]

It's unfortunate that Thoreau says that but is not all that "short and sweet" - some parts are "sweet" - in his own writing.

I can agree with you that sometimes writers do get carried away with excessive detail (Lord of the Rings most notably) and sometimes - during the age of "get paid by the word" - authors do fill tomes with unnecessary and uninteresting details, but this is not quite so common. My point is that there are large tomes that can be as exciting and as direct as 200 page novels and there are 200 page novels which linger around a single point and hardly seem to move (I am reminded of E.M Forster, but this is just my bias as I do not like his writing).

Some large words like "Winter's Tale" by Halprin have a great amount of detail but that it was makes the book as good as it was. Others, such as the longest book in the English language "Clarissa" are driven purely by events and characters.

[Equality72521]

[QUOTE=aBIGsheep;612176] I don't like novels that span 10 pages describing a leaf QUOTE]

HAve you read Lord of the Flies????
Dear lord, there were like 10 pages just talking about the wind. OH god. I'm good with some discription, but oh my stars, that book drove me crazy.

[book_jones]

Sometimes I like to read shorter, more direct novels, but I do really like lone, descriptive novels as well. I guess it just depends on how it's written. It's more okay if the language is beautiful and well written. If it's just written in a typical fashion than I can certainly see that getting tedious.

[stlukesguild]

I don't like wordy books. Its either I'm just lazy or I'm maybe just a direct person, but I don't like novels that span 10 pages describing a leaf *coughlordoftheringsuncough*. I'm exaggerating of course, but I'm sure someone else feels the same as me...

I'll make no judgment as to your motivation... or lack thereof. What I will say is that this post reminded me of that scene in the movie Amadeus in which the emperor tells Mozart that his latest work has potential, but it simply has too many notes. Just clip a few and it'll be great.

There's always cliff notes...:D

OH god. I'm good with some discription, but oh my stars, that book drove me crazy.

Accck! The horror! Such verbosity surely knows no limits. I mean it's all of 200 pages long for Gods sake!:brickwall

[mortalterror]

I agree with you in spirit aBigSheep, but I see no reason for you to bring a rope to your own hanging. Conceding your short comings was a very reasonable and human thing to do, but it gives unscrupulous persons the ammunition they need to undermine your credibility and attack your character; whereas otherwise, they would have to argue the merits of your argument, in their own words as opposed to yours.

[papayahed]

I don't like wordy books. Its either I'm just lazy or I'm maybe just a direct person, but I don't like novels that span 10 pages describing a leaf *coughlordoftheringsuncough*. I'm exaggerating of course, but I'm sure someone else feels the same as me.

I'm gonna gonna stick with my chum Thoreau and say that short & sweet is the way to be.


I agree. Just get to the story...

Sometimes I just skip the descriptions.

[PeterL]

Brevity is the soul of wit. Alas, some authors have not been blessed with as much wit as others. I don't think that length itself is the problem. I think that lack of meaningful content is a problem.

[stlukesguild]

In my opinion, the pleasure in reading is contained in the experience of reading itself and not the end... not the "meaning" or getting to the point. If the latter were true, then surely I would be all for the Reader's Digest Condensed Editions or Cliff Notes. If a work is poorly written then surely it will seem to have too many words no matter how long or short it is. There are also good... even great... but flawed works that could certainly benefit from editing. The endless inclusions of Hebrew law made by later redactors to the Bible are but one immediate example. How long or short a work is an essential component to the artist's intentions. A marvelous haiku or sonnet is not too short nor, a lush, descriptive novel too long any more than is Beethoven's 9th Symphony too long nor Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C-Major from the Well Tempered Clavier too short. To admit that one may not have the patience or the time (or even the preference) for longer works of literature is one thing. There are times when I am so tied up with things that all I can focus upon are shorter fictions and poetry. To suggest that length... lush descriptiveness... is an inherent flaw of the writer, however, seems to be a suggestion of another sort.:nod:

[JBI]

I see your point, but this only applies to bad books. Dickens loved long sentences, and lush descriptions, but he was writing in a modern equivalent of a high mimetic mode, where characters and society are more fleshed out because of this, and events more comical, and brutal. Tolkien on the other hand was writing in an artificial high mimetic mode, being that his story is fiction written as fiction (unlike Homer, and mythological texts, which seem to be written as non-fiction in a fictitious account), and his style seemed to fuse with a didactic style, popular amongst 18th century novelists, though dead now, creating a mix of over dramatic situations with flat characters and boring didacticism about his world. To use his analogy, his writing is like "too much butter, spread over too little bread."

That being said, there is nothing wrong with too much description. Take this description from Nabokov for example:

"Through the darkness and the tender trees we could see the arabesques of lighted windows which, touched up by the colored inks of sensitive memory, appear to me now like playing cards - presumably because a bridge game was keeping the enemy busy."

Lolita


You can see clearly that detail, when handled with skill only adds, whereas detail, when handled with an untalented hand, is like smearing too much paint on a canvas.

[stlukesguild]

Of course you meant Dickens. That first sentence threw me there for a second considering how taut... condensed... concentrated Dickinson's writing is. I'm actually reading some extremely condensed... and un-wordy... writing in the form of some translations of Japanese poetry. I like your analogy of a canvas smeared with "too much paint"... but then again, that is all relative to how well it is done. Van Gogh and Soutine slather it on in the most masterful way where hundreds of other lesser artists works just look clotted up.

[papayahed]

No one said descriptive writing is a flaw I believe big and I both said we didn't care for it.

[Joreads]

No one said descriptive writing is a flaw I believe big and I both said we didn't care for it.

I don't care much for it either. If you can say something in ten words why use twenty - that is the kind of person that I am and I like my reading like that to. When it is all said and done it comes down to personal preference I guess:D

[JBI]

Because, the art of writing isn't in what is said, but how it is said. Anyone can say stuff, it takes an artist to say stuff well.

[stlukesguild]

If you can say something in ten words why use twenty -

But have you really said the same thing with ten words as might be said with twenty... or a hundred and twenty? And as JBI suggests... literature is about the language... how something is said... not merely the "meaning" or what is said.

[Jozanny]

I am half-heartedly working on a non-technical essay where I poke fun at Hugo's verbosity, but the experience of reading Victor Hugo, as flawed as he can be--in Les Miserables, but also Hunchback--is still an experience worth having. It saddens me that young people do not have the patience to learn and study, and hence receive the reward of discernment that comes with maturity, and I mean that with no small degree of feeling.

Even a writer like Gaddis, who packs a dense diction but seemingly forgets about his obligation to sustain the reader's interest, was worth finishing for me. Stuff that isn't tends to be formula thrillers, but even there, some, like Dobyns, or Mankell, push the genre into something slightly less schematic and more interesting to read.

There seems to be a LitNet counter culture toward debunking--or even a net culture toward debunking, which is just stupendously sad, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not the smartest, most cultured, or most read writer in the world, but I'll be damned if I try to get attention by making digs on the cheap, or taking pride in having a chip on my shoulder over dumbing down.

[Joreads]

Jozanny for the record I am 35 with one degree (math related) and working on my second (accounting), it is not about dumbing down it is about what we prefer as readers. It is also not about debunking it is about sharing our thoughts on reading with other readers which I love as I am the only reader in my house (everyone else is math inclined). Having thought about it its a wonder I even pick up books that are not math related:lol:

[Jozanny]

Jozanny for the record I am 35 with one degree (math related) and working on my second (accounting), it is not about dumbing down it is about what we prefer as readers. It is also not about debunking it is about sharing our thoughts on reading with other readers which I love as I am the only reader in my house (everyone else is math inclined). Having thought about it its a wonder I even pick up books that are not math related:lol:

Preferences are one thing, but video is the disease of the modern era because everyone complains about how hard it is to understand Shakespeare or Melville, and god only knows the number of people who wouldn't touch Grass or Musil. I am sick of feeling like a gatekeeper when my journey is so hampered by my disability that I will never experience 70 percent of what I'd love to as an aesthete.

But hey, the kids don't like wordy so lets have real simple delineations. I'm glad I won't live to see what the world is turning into through the death of human endeavor.

[Joreads]

I will never experience 70 percent of what I'd love to as an aesthete.

I agree with 100% on that point there are things in this world that I will never see and books that I will never read and I will be worse off for it.

But hey, the kids don't like wordy so lets have real simple delineations. I'm glad I won't live to see what the world is turning into through the death of human endeavor.[/QUOTE]

Sorry if I'm killing human endeavor I didn't mean to really :lol:.

I love to read and in fact when I am not at work or studying I am reading and yes I watch a little TV. I read a lot of different books by a lot of different authors and I am also a member of a local book club. I agree that the art of reading is being lost so surely if people can find books that they love to read then we should stand up and cheer and not be to picky about the kind of book that they are reading. For me its not about the word count or how hard or now easy the book is, it is about the reading and enjoying it and yes sometimes taking something away from it.

[Jozanny]

Sorry if I'm killing human endeavor I didn't mean to really :lol:.

I love to read and in fact when I am not at work or studying I am reading and yes I watch a little TV. I read a lot of different books by a lot of different authors and I am also a member of a local book club. I agree that the art of reading is being lost so surely if people can find books that they love to read then we should stand up and cheer and not be to picky about the kind of book that they are reading. For me its not about the word count or how hard or now easy the book is, it is about the reading and enjoying it and yes sometimes taking something away from it.

You posted earlier that you took a degree in mathematics, a field which beyond a certain point my ability to understand breaks down; however, I can appreciate that numbers and equations make their own kind of artistry, and I would never go into a forum on statistics or calculus and post something like "maybe it's me but why do we need anything more than quadratic equations? I am the kind of girl who needs my numbers simple."

This isn't really an argument, but an ad hoc protest. I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.:flare:

[papayahed]

Because, the art of writing isn't in what is said, but how it is said. Anyone can say stuff, it takes an artist to say stuff well.



There seems to be a LitNet counter culture toward debunking--or even a net culture toward debunking, which is just stupendously sad, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not the smartest, most cultured, or most read writer in the world, but I'll be damned if I try to get attention by making digs on the cheap, or taking pride in having a chip on my shoulder over dumbing down.


Preferences are one thing, but video is the disease of the modern era because everyone complains about how hard it is to understand Shakespeare or Melville, and god only knows the number of people who wouldn't touch Grass or Musil. I am sick of feeling like a gatekeeper when my journey is so hampered by my disability that I will never experience 70 percent of what I'd love to as an aesthete.

But hey, the kids don't like wordy so lets have real simple delineations. I'm glad I won't live to see what the world is turning into through the death of human endeavor.


You posted earlier that you took a degree in mathematics, a field which beyond a certain point my ability to understand breaks down; however, I can appreciate that numbers and equations make their own kind of artistry, and I would never go into a forum on statistics or calculus and post something like "maybe it's me but why do we need anything more than quadratic equations? I am the kind of girl who needs my numbers simple."

This isn't really an argument, but an ad hoc protest. I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.:flare:

I'm a 38 year old woman and I've been on this board for 4 years. I'm here because I like reading. I don't give two figs about "the art" I read what I like. And quite honestly I don't care what you or anyone else thinks about the way or what I read. And if I want to post all over the bored that I don't like wordiness how is that your problem? I think there is plenty of room for all types of readers without trying to make each other feel "dumb" or "elitist".

What I want to know is if someone gives an opinion why subsequent posters have to "inform" the original poster they are wrong? It's an opinion.

[Jozanny]

I'm a 38 year old woman and I've been on this board for 4 years. I'm here because I like reading. I don't give two figs about "the art" I read what I like. And quite honestly I don't care what you or anyone else thinks about the way or what I read. And if I want to post all over the bored that I don't like wordiness how is that your problem?

It's my problem if an education in the humanities is obviously becoming irrelevant. I don't dumb down to my audience either.

[papayahed]

It's my problem if an education in the humanities is obviously becoming irrelevant. I don't dumb down to my audience either.

Do I need an education in humanities to post my opinions?

[Jozanny]

Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? — better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Walden, Henry David Thoreau


I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay.

Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist obscurity - yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence of the pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the glass house above my head.

The Sea Wolf, Chapter 1, Jack London

How is London wordier than Thoreau? Can anyone even tell me why I pose the question?

[stlukesguild]

I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.

I agree here with Jozy. Those of us who took a contrary position did so because the OP and several subsequent posts came out and suggested that a lush use of language was in and of itself a problem... let's just get to the point... skip all that boring descriptiveness. As I have said before I have no problem admitting that there are times I lean toward the more brief or condensed... out of time constraints, etc... but I am not going to come out and deride longer, eloquent wordiness as a result of my own limitations. I also agree with Jozy that there is something to the attitude of "let's crop all that boring description and just get to the narrative" that sounds like the result of years of Hollywood film and television and the focus upon moving the action forward at the expense of everything else. Undoubtedly, such plays a large part in the lagging readership for poetry (as can be witnessed at the LitNet's own poetry board) which is rarely about action and far more concerned with the aesthetic beauty of language itself. Yes... if there is a certain writer that strikes you as overly verbose or in need of some editing... I agree... such is a valid point... let's throw out some examples and discuss them. Victor Hugo certainly... but Lord of the Flies? At a mere 200 pages? Or descriptive literature in general... especially all those musty old 19th century novels? What do we want? All writers to be as reductive as Beckett and Borges? To my mind to make a statement that "I don't like long, descriptive books" is rather like saying "I don't like paintings with too much green in them." If such is my personal preference and there can be no discussion, then I question why I would post such a statement upon a forum dedicated to the discussion of reading.

[Jozanny]

I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.

I agree here with Jozy. Those of us who took a contrary position did so because the OP and several subsequent posts came out and suggested that a lush use of language was in and of itself a problem... let's just get to the point... skip all that boring descriptiveness. As I have said before I have no problem admitting that there are times I lean toward the more brief or condensed... out of time constraints, etc... but I am not going to come out and deride longer, eloquent wordiness as a result of my own limitations. I also agree with Jozy that there is something to the attitude of "let's crop all that boring description and just get to the narrative" that sounds like the result of years of Hollywood film and television and the focus upon moving the action forward at the expense of everything else.

If you weren't married already I'd propose.:blush:

[papayahed]

I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.

I agree here with Jozy. Those of us who took a contrary position did so because the OP and several subsequent posts came out and suggested that a lush use of language was in and of itself a problem... let's just get to the point... skip all that boring descriptiveness. As I have said before I have no problem admitting that there are times I lean toward the more brief or condensed... out of time constraints, etc... but I am not going to come out and deride longer, eloquent wordiness as a result of my own limitations. I also agree with Jozy that there is something to the attitude of "let's crop all that boring description and just get to the narrative" that sounds like the result of years of Hollywood film and television and the focus upon moving the action forward at the expense of everything else. Undoubtedly, such plays a large part in the lagging readership for poetry (as can be witnessed at the LitNet's own poetry board) which is rarely about action and far more concerned with the aesthetic beauty of language itself. Yes... if there is a certain writer that strikes you as overly verbose or in need of some editing... I agree... such is a valid point... let's throw out some examples and discuss them. Victor Hugo certainly... but Lord of the Flies? At a mere 200 pages? Or descriptive literature in general... especially all those musty old 19th century novels? What do we want? All writers to be as reductive as Beckett and Borges? To my mind to make a statement that "I don't like long, descriptive books" is rather like saying "I don't like paintings with too much green in them." If such is my personal preference and there can be no discussion, then I question why I would post such a statement upon a forum dedicated to the discussion of reading.

The OP didn't say it was a problem, he said he didn't like it. What you seem to forget is that this is an open forum. Nobody is checking literary credentials at the door. As I've stated there are those of us who read for the simple pleasure of reading that doesn't make us dumb and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't be posting on this forum. My opinions are my own, no matter how inane you may think them to be.

[JBI]

No Papaya, Stlukes brings up a good point. What is wordy? Having descriptions, having long sentences, or just being a thick novel? Jane Austen has been described by many people I know who have read her (on this forum too) of having a way too wordy prose style, yet I would argue that she does not use very much physical description. Her long sentences, though somewhat a convention of the time, are used primarily to allow her to pack ironic subtleties. That is very different than the so called "10 pages to describe a leaf" of the OP.

By any standards, anyway, Thoreau is quite wordy. Try reading the first section - Economics - of Walden without being bored. Think how long he goes on to describe how he knows how much everything in his house costs to the cent, and then lists it.


Though one, as you clearly point out, is entitled to an opinion, and a taste, there is another problem. Not all wordy authors write the same way, and not all nonwordy authors write the same way. The prose of an Icelandic saga is quite different than that of Hemmingway, even though both are intensely minimalist. These too differ quite significantly from Beckett, another minimalist, or from W. C. Williams, the minimalist poet.

With literature from modernism forwards (and even some before then, such as Don Quixote, though most English novels seem to follow trends up until Modernism) the style of the author became more important. As a result, you have authors like Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Hemingway, etc. each creating styles that, even if you only read one paragraph, are identifiable.

Despite this though, even in older texts we can see a great difference in "wordy" prose styles. That of the low mimetic ironic style of Austen, compared to the adventurous style of Sir Walter Scott, for example.

In conclusion, it seems unfair to group all "wordy" literature together into the so called "span 10 pages describing a leaf *coughlordoftheringsuncough*" when most wordy authors don't resemble that at all. The problem seems to be with Lord of the Rings, not with wordy books, as, like I pointed out, the wordiness of Virgina Woolf doesn't resemble Tolkien at all.


Do I need an education in humanities to post my opinions?

The answer is clearly no, since, to be honest, a degree in English literature has no bearing on the level of enjoyment one receives from reading, except to introduce new works to a reader (though the internet, and boards such as these make that rather pointless). Though, lets not group all humanities together, as the study of history has no relevance, nor does the composition and playing of music, or art history. Either way though, the opinions on these boards seem completely unrelated to contemporary academic trends in the study of English and American literature.

[Joreads]

This isn't really an argument, but an ad hoc protest. I would be more interested in the OP highlighting a particular issue about "wordiness" rather than condemning intricate language outright.:flare:

Hi Jozanny

I am enjoying the discussion so I never thought of it as an argument as I said earlier I am the only one in my house that reads fiction so this is great for me.

My issue with novels that are wordy is that I have a 1+1=2 mind and wordiness really doesn't appeal to it. I find it really hard to manage and that is a limitation of mine and in all honesty something that I need to work on (oneday):p. Truth be told while I love what I read when I hear others talk about novels that I have read and did not like and yes sometimes did not understand I get a little jealous. But what I do read is just as valid as what others read. I really believe that you can take something away from almost every novel that you read.

We are all different and that is what make this forum great there would not be much to say if we all thought the same thing.

Have a great day

[mortalterror]

You posted earlier that you took a degree in mathematics, a field which beyond a certain point my ability to understand breaks down; however, I can appreciate that numbers and equations make their own kind of artistry, and I would never go into a forum on statistics or calculus and post something like "maybe it's me but why do we need anything more than quadratic equations? I am the kind of girl who needs my numbers simple."

Honestly Jozanny, StLukes regularly agrees with your opinions and I tend to disagree. My degree is in literature and his is in painting. Make of that what you will.


The prose of an Icelandic saga is quite different than that of Hemmingway, even though both are intensely minimalist.

JBI, while I respect your critical opinion and know you have good reasons for holding it, I believe you are misreading Hemingway do to a lack of exposure to his work. The minimalist period was just an early phase of his career, and while it's effect can be felt all through his oeuvre that's sort of like referring to Nabokov as "That writer of Russian novels," because his first nine novels were written in Russian. While technically true, it ignores the fifteen years the man spent writing in Germany, and the twenty he spent in America, as well as the changes both experiences wrought on him and his style. Ernest Hemingway had a forty year career and it's only natural that any man who works at a profession long enough will make some changes in the way that he approaches his craft.

Also, referring to Hemingway as a minimalist writer emphasizes one trait of his writing to the exclusion of others. In a similar manner, I wouldn't write Beckett off as a minimalist writer either. Both men were responsible for unique innovations in the speed at which their work could be consumed, through pauses and rhythms and other such devices. They ought to be as well known for those things as for the length of their dialogue.

As far as the OP is concerned, I'm of the opinion that a good writer must know the amount of material he has to work with. To expand or compress it is a stylistic choice. If you compress too much, you risk losing your message by subtraction. If you overexpand then you risk losing your message by redundancy, addition, or lack of focus. It's all a matter of proportion, and how much you really have to say.

Every word we write is a choice. We make decisions to go in one direction or another. Do we emphasize character here? Have I written too much dialogue there; or do I need more description to balance it out? Those are choices. When a novel runs to several thousand pages or an essay to several hundred, that is often a sign that the writer has stopped making choices, has stopped privileging one thing above another, and does not remember what is essential and what is non-essential to his story. When this happens, just as in nature where gigantism is commonplace, the results are grotesque. When one aspect of a work is out of proportion to the whole it makes other parts of a story break down as well. Excessive size or length is seldom aesthetically pleasing, but neither is excessive leanness. A healthy man is neither fat nor gaunt and a good book is neither short nor long but cut to the size of it's narrative, or subject matter, as the case may be.

[stlukesguild]

Honestly Jozanny, StLukes regularly agrees with your opinions and I tend to disagree. My degree is in literature and his is in painting. Make of that what you will.

Ah... and I am regularly presented as the elitist here... but then who is playing the " Look at me! I have a degree!" card.:rolleyes: Grow up. There are a hell of a lot of people with art degrees that couldn't tell Giotto from Pollack. I have no doubt that the same hold true of degrees in literature.

[Jozanny]

Hi Jozanny

I am enjoying the discussion so I never thought of it as an argument as I said earlier I am the only one in my house that reads fiction so this is great for me.

My issue with novels that are wordy is that I have a 1+1=2 mind and wordiness really doesn't appeal to it. I find it really hard to manage and that is a limitation of mine and in all honesty something that I need to work on (oneday):p. Have a great day

Joreads: I meant argument in the sense of this definition: A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.

Not as a squabble.

Now, I respect that you have a 1 + 1=2 mind. I place no value judgment on that. I have a metaphorical mind--but what gets my goat is sweeping condemnations that go on in internet culture. I am not just referring to litnet. I read Politico and you cannot even post a decent discussion there since everyone literally screams at each other in black and white. I have to search far and wide for even semi-mature debates between reasonable adults.

I think, not that I am trying to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think that luke, JBI and myself would at least like some reasonable criteria. I'd ask BIG, on the basis of the Thoreau sample posted, how that passage is any less clear than Jack London's?

No one needs a degree to discuss books, but there are better ways to frame an *issue* and weaker ways. Mortal knows this, and probably gets to me more than some because I have read that he can indeed discriminate and offer a reasonable analysis--and yet chucks it all for a Nathanael West type of mass riot in the name of everyone's favorite movie idol. I'd ask him why. I can understand a degree of discontent with the modernist lexicon, but I think it is absurd to engage in fantasies of wiping out history for a schematical order that is no longer conceptually feasible.

It's mortal's fault that I am almost thrown, by default, into luke's arena--as there are plenty of areas where I go exploring and luke disdains to tread--but we are allies in the name of some reasonable degree of sanity.:D:crash::)

[aBIGsheep]

O the irony of this thread. I started it because I often hate reading all the fluff of some literature.

Now all I see in this thread are wallsoftextwallsoftextwallsoftext

[wilbur lim]

Wordy books is unstimulating as it would invite a headache to you,but depends whether you are industrious or not.