Purple prose

[Anonymous No.18072806]

Who's the worst offender? Any particularly cringy bits?

[Anonymous No.18072819]

CorMc McCarthy

>Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth high-shouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.
>Old stone walls unplumbed by weathers, lodged in their striae fossil bones, limestone scarabs rucked in the floor of this once inland sea. Thin dark tress through yon iron palings where the dead keep their own small metropolis. Curious marble architecture, stele and obelisk and cross and little rainworn stones where names grow dim with years. Earth packed with samples of the casketmaker's trade, the dusty bones and rotted silk, the deathwear stained with carrion.
>Out there under the blue lamplight the trolleytracks run on to darkness, curved like cockheels in the pinchbeck dusk. The steel leaks back the day's heat, you can feel it through the floors of your shoes. Past these corrugated warehouse walls down little sandy streets where blownout autos sulk on pedestals of cinderblock. Through warrens of sumac and pokeweed and withered honeysuckle giving onto the scored clay banks of the railway. Gray vines coiled leftward in this northern hemisphere, what winds them shapes the dogwhelk's shell. Weeds sprouted from cinder and brick. A steamshovel reared in solitary abandonment against the night sky. Cross here.

[Anonymous No.18072829]

>>18072819
I wish I adopted you when you were a child. Then I would have raised you to be a real man and happy. All of this is just stress over how you didn't have a proper figure like me in real life. However, we can change this for a measly 100 dollars per hour where I pretend your dad over Skype. I need payment in advance though.

[Anonymous No.18072836]

Most female writers. It's like they jerked off on prose.

[Anonymous No.18072837]

>>18072819
Sounds kino

[Anonymous No.18072839]

>>18072819
This is goddamn amazing! What's it from?

[Anonymous No.18072843]

>>18072829
>>18072837
>>18072839

[Anonymous No.18072846]

>>18072843
don't bully our greatest ally

[Anonymous No.18072854]

>>18072839
Suttree.

[Anonymous No.18072855]

>>18072819
What is his fucking problem?

[Anonymous No.18072866]

>>18072843
I'm far from being American.

[Anonymous No.18072877]

>>18072854
Thanks

[Anonymous No.18072879]

>>18072806
Everything Nabokov ever wrote.

[Anonymous No.18072880]

>>18072806
I tried to read one of Henry James' essays and it was really bad

>I SHOULD not have affixed so comprehensive a title to these few remarks, necessarily wanting in any completeness, upon a subject the full consideration of which would carry us far, did I not seem to discover a pretext for my temerity in the interesting pamphlet lately published under this name by Mr. Walter Besant. Mr. Besant's lecture at the Royal Institution--the original form of his pamphlet--appears to indicate that many persons are interested in the art of fiction and are not indifferent to such remarks as those who practise it may attempt to make about it. I am therefore anxious not to lose the benefit of this favourable association, and to edge in a few words under cover of the attention which Mr. Besant is sure to have excited. There is something very encouraging in his having put into form certain of his ideas on the mystery of story-telling.

>>18072839
It's from Suttree. A lot of people here don't like McCarthy (he is a very polarizing writer all around) but the ones that do like him really, really like him. Blood Meridian is probably his masterpiece but Suttree is probably his best book

[Anonymous No.18072882]

>>18072855
Overdosed on Faulkner and dime store westerns

[Anonymous No.18072887]

>>18072855
He is making fun of Agee's death in the family.

[Anonymous No.18072900]

>>18072855
He filters the plebs way too hard. Should've been more subtle.

[Anonymous No.18072901]

Some of Melville after Moby Dick is probably the worst offender, I just happen to love it.
Funnily, his poetry is less verbose and flowery than his prose. Although, he was playing on Chaucer and Romantic novels with Confidence Man and Pierre, so that may explain that.

[Anonymous No.18072911]

Shlomo Dreidelus

[Anonymous No.18072913]

>>18072901
What poetry in particular?

[Anonymous No.18072934]

>>18072819
this sounds like it's narrated by God or by Death. there's a clear detachment yet precise details.

[Anonymous No.18072935]

Most will probably not know who this man is and that's for the best. He has some of the worst prose I've ever read, everything he says feels so empty, he says so little in such large sentences and there's parts where his prose becomes laughable even if he's trying to be serious or write with some urgency. This could be forgiven if it was by some second-rate author but he's considered as one of the best Spanish novelists of his time.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.18072940]

>>18072806
Most of the romantics desu.

[Anonymous No.18072954]

>>18072940
>prose

[Anonymous No.18072965]

>>18072882
The recipe for kino.

[Anonymous No.18073015]

>>18072880
Have you read about Henry James asking for directions? kek he was an autist

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.18073036]

>>18072954
The Victorian era novelists are considered romantics, right? Like Shelley and Austen?

[Anonymous No.18073041]

>>18072934
It's by Cornelius himself. He is high IQ and very well read so he satirizes american lit whenever he feels like it.
>Suttree with his miles to go kept his eyes to the ground, maudlin and muttersome in the bitter chill, under the lonely lamplight.
Making fun of Frost and american poetry's insistence on alliteration.

[Anonymous No.18073062]

>>18073036
Shelley? Yes. Austen? No. Also none of these were Victorian era writers.

[Anonymous No.18073068]

>>18073015
I think all the great prose stylists–Joyce, Nabokov, Faulkner, James, etc–were autistic to some degree, but holy fucking shit, James was on another level and not necessarily in a good way. Did I unironically get filtered? At least with this >>18072819 the prose is a stylistic choice, and there seems to be some intentionally since he's describing a scene. But this shit >>18072880 is non-fiction, and it takes him a whole paragraph to basically say that "I shouldn't have named this essay The Art of Fiction, but recently I found a pamphlet that was talking about it and there seems to be a lot of people interested in the art of fiction, and so I guess, since I'm a writer, I can say a few words." There's nothing particularly beautiful about the language, it seems to be intentionally confusing and overwritten

[Anonymous No.18073079]

>>18073036
>Austen, purple prose.
Hasn't read Austen.

[Anonymous No.18073103]

>>18072913
Have only read bits of Clarel, that excluded
Battle Aspects is a bit like an Iliad version of the American Civil War. It's not simple a collection, it's a narrative that builds on each other and gives a sense of the Civil War in general, he described it as a harp being left out in the wind with no consistent sentiment or theme as it goes where the wind goes. The problem I've had is that it's very very detailed with regards to the Civil War, so checking the footnotes and reading poetry has forced me to re-read each poem like 4-5 times before I 'get it.' I think it's great though, especially the one where he compares Stonewall Jackson to Ahab without saying Ahab.
Timoleon and John Marr collections he wrote for himself and they were published privately. Timoleon etc. is weird, probably his most personal 'book' since he really only wrote it for himself, especially the second section of it where he's reflecting on his younger years and edited or re-wrote his poetry from long ago.

Then the collection for his wife, I doubt I'll read, I don't need to intrude so much on Melville's personal life even if he's long dead.

[Anonymous No.18073109]

>>18073068
Henry James was autism incarnate.

[Anonymous No.18073140]

>>18073109
lmao

[Anonymous No.18073225]

>>18073068
Faulkner and Joyce don't strike me as autistic men. Nabokov was just eccentric. But James was DEFINITELY in the spectrum.

[Anonymous No.18073358]

>>18073109
So Henry James didn't just write like that out of wankery, this how he actually talked.
Jesus Christ

[Anonymous No.18073362]

>>18073109
Dear god, if his writing style was just a 'style' then I could respect him for that, but no, this fucker was legitimately mentally ill

[Anonymous No.18073390]

When purple is done right it is the greatest style of writing:

>>18073096

[Anonymous No.18073643]

>>18072819
Legendary passage. Here's a pastiche I wrote of it some time ago

[Anonymous No.18073671]

>>18073109
Kinda like Polonius from Hamlet, lmfao

[Anonymous No.18074355]

>>18073109
Did they fuck?

[Anonymous No.18074384]

>>18074355
Henry James was homosexual. They were friends.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18074403]

There is nothing wrong with purple prose if it is used in a way that marries form and content. Something like a-rebours can be as purple as it wants to be because it’s the internal thought of an artsy pretentious aristocrat, similarly the slightest amount of purple in an otherwise dirty and mundane story can be really jarring. One famous example of out of place purple prose is the order of the occult hand, in which a police report to paraphrase said “it was as if an occult hand had done the deed” or something akin to it, many authors skip in an occult hand in their works to reference it.

One of the most famous examples of authors who specifically cultivated extreme purple was John Lyly, who’s work was so purple and his principles so ornamental that he produced a whole term and even style called Euphuism(drawn from his book Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit)

His style was used by more pretentious characters partially to mock him but also because it served as a model of absolute pretentiousness, and such a ornamental decadence can itself be a very beautiful thing.

Here is a random page from lily, read it or if you desire, recite it. Very pretty.

So I would say you’re better off looking for more novice writers or more down to earth Writers who accidentally fall into it, rather than people who specialize in that intricate and well structured purple style.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18074413]

>>18073390
Ye, from Wikipedia

> Many critics did not appreciate Lyly's deliberate excesses. Philip Sidney and Gabriel Harvey castigated his style.

Lyly's style, however[clarification needed], influenced Shakespeare, who satirised[clarification needed] it in speeches by Polonius in Hamlet and the florid language of the courtly lovers in Love's Labour's Lost; Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing also made use of it, as did Richard and Lady Anne in Richard III. It was taken up by the Elizabethan writers Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge and Barnabe Rich. Walter Scott satirised it in the character of Sir Piercie Shafton in The Monastery, while Charles Kingsley defended Euphues in Westward Ho!.

[Anonymous No.18074424]

>>18074403
>methinketh
come on now

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18074468]

>>18074424
Fits his style and his content.

[Anonymous No.18074495]

>>18074468
that's nicer. what is it?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18074505]

>>18074495
A poem of his called “a Dittie”

Here’s another.

I think he’s definitely worth the read if you want to see extreme purple.

[Anonymous No.18074546]

my diary desu

[Anonymous No.18074596]

>>18073109
>My friend, to put it to you in two words, the lady and I have just shit our pants, that is to say, to be more strictly accurate, we have recently doo doo'd our diapers, having actually transitioned from fart to shid, which was our point of our pants fillings, and the stench has overtaken us, we should be much obliged if yopu would tell us where we are now in relation, say, to the potty, which, as you of course know, leads to the sewers, after leaving

[Anonymous No.18074845]

>>18074596
im dead

[Anonymous No.18075032]

>>18074403
>John Lyly
I looked him up and pictures of Marlowe and Locke appear. Is he a fictional writer?

[Anonymous No.18075538]

>>18072819
Yeah honestly never cared for his style, it's all flower

[Anonymous No.18075544]

>>18075538
Filtered

[Anonymous No.18075572]

>>18073103
I want to read clarel so bad please tell me it's good

[Anonymous No.18075585]

>>18075538
filtered

[Anonymous No.18075590]

Someone post the video of the MLP purple prose fanfic. I can't find it.

[Anonymous No.18075642]

>>18075538
t.doesnt understand what flowery prose looks like.

[Anonymous No.18075672]

>>18075544
>>18075585
that nigga be spittin fax tho

[Anonymous No.18075699]

>>18074596
kek

[Anonymous No.18075705]

>>18075572
It's like God whispering something into your ear, and only for you.
Is that good enough?

I'm going through his novels, before I get back to it, but just read the opening page and you'll see how good it is.

[Anonymous No.18075866]

>>18072806
Nabokov got away with too much

>>18072935
He looks like a cunt all right

>>18073068
It’s what happens when you write in Received Pronunciation as a pre-20th century Anglo: pseudo-Latinate baroque doggerel with the prolix syntactic lymphoma of German

[Anonymous No.18075872]

>>18075672
nah he wrong

[Anonymous No.18075874]

>>18075866
>pseudo-Latinate baroque doggerel with the prolix syntactic lymphoma of German
Kek same could apply to Nabokov

[Anonymous No.18075896]

>>18074596
orbit

[Anonymous No.18075906]

>>18074596
YE'RE IN IT

[Anonymous No.18076097]

>>18075672
That nigga doesn't know what he is talking about.

[Anonymous No.18076122]

>>18072806
That homosexual, Proust.
All of ISOLT

[Anonymous No.18076136]

>>18074384
of course

[Anonymous No.18076146]

I don't really buy "purple" prose as a critical thing. It's the same as "pretentious" to me. It implies that the artist or speaker has done a bad job because their work behaves as if it believes itself to be good, which all work should do. It's really an embarrassment on the reader's behalf when they don't think the sentiment of the words matches up to the gravity of how they're said/written.

[Anonymous No.18076153]

>>18072819
Suttree's one of my favourite books. I'm due for a reread.

[Anonymous No.18076362]

>>18073109
>>18074596