I think ornate Prose has fallen out of fashion, and something described with too much panache offends our sensibilities. That writing with flourish is egotistical and takes away from the story.
But I grew up seeing literature as the creative expansion of language first, and a vehicle for story second. The medium is more important than its contents because it's the structure that makes up the meaning.
I think Bradbury and Faulkner are both decidedly purple, and purple happens to be my favorite color. It's royal, after all! I think too many writers worry that their attempt to write "writerly" comes off as masturbatory when learning to flex without becoming overly indulgent should be encouraged.
by BlessdRTheFreaks
10 Comments
I mean, I entirely disagree with you but I’m curious to see the responses
Fitz James O’Brien
Alan Moore’s latest book the Great When is very ornate. I adore his work and loved it.
You should *definitely* pick up the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. He also wrote a standalone novel (for if you checked that page number on the FS and balked) called Fraternity that contains these bangers:
>Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog, of toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had at last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.
> In their favourite firmaments the stars of crocuses and daffodils were shining.
> And all the spires and house-roofs, and the spaces up above and underneath them, glittered and swam, and men and horses looked as if they had been powdered with golden dust.
Shout out to Thomas Hardy too, Far from the Madding Crowd has some amazing prose. Truly life affirming stuff.
Bruno Schulz
I thought purple prose specifically had the connotation of flowery writing that missed the mark and was unenjoyable.
I’m a big fan of Paul Beatty, particularly The Sellout.
I dunno about purple..but The Sun Eater series is highly literate with a lot of fancy prose.
Donna Tartt I think is held up as someone who does it well! And I loved it in the first Southern Reach book Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer. Books 2 and 3 dragged as a result though, really dense reading
Gene Wolfe, Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, Ada Palmer, Guy Gavriel Kay, Dan Simmons, Jeff Vandermeer, to name a few.