I fall prey to vanity but I don't let it consume me, so if you're sick of hearing me rant about the physical state of men, this rant is for you: I've moved on to the literary state of men.
First: I've had trouble for a while articulating exactly what bothers me about Junot Diaz, apart from the fact that people are falling over themselves to worship at his feet when he's just not all that. But there's always been something else, and I've finally found it, in the words of
Díaz says it’s important to map a mind like Yunior’s because “it’s astonishing how little we understand male subjectivity.” At which point my jaw discreetly drops: Is he calling this stuff under reported?! Yes, Díaz’s voice is fresh, as is the Dominican/New Jersey working-class nerd-turned-academic perspective. But I’ve been reading about women through a lens of leering contempt forever. That men reduce women to body parts and to their sexual withholding/putting-out/performance is not a revelation. Recording that reductiveness without comment, exploration, or illumination does not a successful “feminist-aligned project” make.
So I say, not to Díaz, but to This Is How You Lose Her: About my failure to engage productively with your maps of male subjectivity? It’s not me, it’s you.That sums it up, and now that I've gotten it out of my system, I can quit expressing my bewilderment at Mr. Diaz's success.
And so I'll move on to men much less articulate than Mr. Diaz: most of the men who are interested in dating me. My favorite quote on this matter is (of course) credited to the late, great Nora Ephron, as articulated by Rosie O'Donnell in "Sleepless in Seattle": "Verbal ability is a highly overrated thing in a guy and our pathetic need for it is what gets us into so much trouble." Touché. (If anyone's counting, this has to be the third or fourth time I've used that quote on this blog).
A couple of years ago, a (male) friend--one who appreciates and compliments my writing skills--made fun of me for expecting my "suitors" to have a Pulitzer. If only. I was very happy, later, to send him this study about how matching language styles are not bad predictors of compatibility.
Most of the guys who express interest in me are barely literate; those guys are easy to ignore, and they're not worth writing about. But there's another breed of guy: the pompous ass who thinks the longer the words, the smarter he appears. You just want to mail him a copy of "The Elements of Style," but you can't be asked. So you take to your blog.
Look, guys (and ladies, if this applies to you): using big words does not make you a good writer. Being cryptic does not make you a good writer; it makes you a bad writer. Please do not write, "how would you characterize the nature of these events" when "tell me more about this" will do. Not only because the former sounds ridiculous, but also because I don't want to have to think about what the f* you mean. It's like wearing a long, silk ball gown to clean your house: it comes off as absurd and it gets in the way of what you're trying to do.
Big words are not always inappropriate; sometimes, they hit the spot. The other day, I'd sent my coworkers a follow-up e-mail along the lines of, "my understanding is that K is getting in touch with these people, G is getting in touch with those people, I'm getting in touch with these other people--but not until later--and I'm also putting together this summary paper, etc. do I have that right?" K wrote back to say, "that accords with my recollection." That was fine. He could have said, "that's what I remember," but what he did say was no worse. It was not unclear; it did not get in the way; I did not have to close-read it to understand what he meant. It didn't give me a headache.
An example of the opposite: I went out with a guy a year or so ago who made no sense:
A.: So, what was it about your trip that you didn't enjoy?
Guy: I ended up vagabonding through the continent, and I hadn't intended to vagabond through the continent.
I wanted to say, "what the f* does that mean," but it wasn't worth it; he'd already lost me. The whole date was like that, and by the time he came out with that response, I was exhausted and waving the white flag of "please just stop talking." The amount of work it would take to get a straight answer out of this guy was more than I'd signed up for.
It should not have to be that way: conversation shouldn't have to be that way, and written correspondence shouldn't be that way.
Don't say "what is the cause for your disappointment?" when "why were you disappointed" is less likely to make your reader want to strangle you. We should all know not to use big words when short words will do, but do we also know not to use many words when fewer will do? And do we understand that it's less about bigger or shorter, and more about the words that best convey your meaning and connotation? Don't use the word "regarding" when "about" will do, not just because it's pompous, but more importantly, because it doesn't work.
When I think about language that inspires me, it is not language that makes me think, "WTF??" Here's an example of a sentence so good as to make me stop to think about it. Note that the writer--Jessanne Collins--wastes no words here:
"And I had been caught red-handed doing something ironic with a cupcake."
It's thought-provoking, not exhausting. It's evocative of the times, not of the thesaurus. It's brilliant because it's simple.
Note: even though I've complained about how Mr. Diaz's writing exhausts me, I don't hold it against him; I just prefer not to read it. But I appreciate that fiction sometimes entails stylized language.
As far as non-fiction goes, however, clarity and accuracy are its most essential qualities. Your reader shouldn't have to fight through your language to get to your message. Even with fiction, where mystery is good, confusion is bad. It's wonderful if your writing makes your readers think, but any work on the part of the reader should happen beyond the words. If there's analysis to be had, save it for the concepts, not the language. No reader wants to have to translate from gobbledygook to English (or any other language); that's your job, between the thoughts' appearance in your head and their transmission to anyone else. To write otherwise is to verbally masturbate and expect your readers to clean up the mess.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment