Year of the Book: lucid prose

[eleneariel]

At the 1999 National Book Awards ceremony Oprah Winfrey told of calling Toni Morrison to say that she had had to puzzle over many of the latter's sentences. According to Oprah, Morrison's reply was "That, my dear, is called reading." Sorry, my dear Toni, but it's actually called bad writing. Great prose isn't always easy, but it's always lucid; no one of Oprah's intelligence ever had to wonder what Joseph Conrad was trying to say in a particular sentence. This didn't stop the talk-show host from quoting her friend's words with approval. 

"A Reader's manifesto" in The Atlantic Monthly, by B R Myers

Annnnd that would be why I have a hard time appreciating authors like Faulkner.
 

Comments

[main-hoon-emily.livejournal.com]

You mean the point of writing isn't to be unintelligible?

Someone should have told me.

:-P

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I KNOW. o_O

[beccabug33.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I'm not a fan of faulkner as well. Do you like fitzgerald? Usually you love one and hate the other. I'm a fitzgerald fan.

i liked 'the bluest eye', but that's all I've read of Ms. Morrison.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Honestly, Fitzgerald isn't one of my favorites either, but I would choose him over Faulkner ANY day.