The Poise of Prose
All truly great books give you a slap in the face, sock you square in the stomach, then spit on your soul for good measure.
I find myself reading more an more for the prose. I care not for the story (though that is also quite helpful), for stories can be ripped off, tweaked, regurgitated with a new high gloss shimmering cover. Look at Disney, they've been doing it for decades with movies. How many times have you seen a movie or book completely based off the plot of a Shakespeare play, though in a different setting, with a completely different title, and no credit given to the author? See it all boils down to the prose. The flow of the page. If the prose is good, the story may not even matter. Hemingway has proven that to us time and again. To fit a choice word into its proper place within a sentence, within a paragraph, within an idea, takes true genius. But people can't handle the truth these days. They want the summarized, condensed version. The spark notes, the middle school reading level, the layman's termed bile. Good prose takes effort to digest. Good prose wraps itself around your neck, screams, and drags you down the rabbit hole with it. Good prose paints images on the mind far more realistic than life itself.
"...the world ceases to revolve, time stops, the very nexus of my dreams is broken and dissolved and my guts spill out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation that leaves me face to face with the absolute. I see again the great sprawling mothers of Picasso, their breasts covered with spiders, their legend hidden deep in the labyrinth. And Molly Bloom lying on a dirty mattress for eternity. On the toilet door red chalk cocks and the madonna uttering the diapason of woe. I hear a wild hysterical laugh, a room full of lockjaw, and the body that was black glows like phosphorus." - excerpt from Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
I cannot recommend the following authors to you, as their writing has been considered vile, unsanitary, depraved, even crass. All of whose works have been banned for countless years, in countless places across the globe. But at your own risk: John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Hubert Selby Jr, Henry Miller, William S Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and even our beloved Shakespeare.
I find myself reading more an more for the prose. I care not for the story (though that is also quite helpful), for stories can be ripped off, tweaked, regurgitated with a new high gloss shimmering cover. Look at Disney, they've been doing it for decades with movies. How many times have you seen a movie or book completely based off the plot of a Shakespeare play, though in a different setting, with a completely different title, and no credit given to the author? See it all boils down to the prose. The flow of the page. If the prose is good, the story may not even matter. Hemingway has proven that to us time and again. To fit a choice word into its proper place within a sentence, within a paragraph, within an idea, takes true genius. But people can't handle the truth these days. They want the summarized, condensed version. The spark notes, the middle school reading level, the layman's termed bile. Good prose takes effort to digest. Good prose wraps itself around your neck, screams, and drags you down the rabbit hole with it. Good prose paints images on the mind far more realistic than life itself.
"...the world ceases to revolve, time stops, the very nexus of my dreams is broken and dissolved and my guts spill out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation that leaves me face to face with the absolute. I see again the great sprawling mothers of Picasso, their breasts covered with spiders, their legend hidden deep in the labyrinth. And Molly Bloom lying on a dirty mattress for eternity. On the toilet door red chalk cocks and the madonna uttering the diapason of woe. I hear a wild hysterical laugh, a room full of lockjaw, and the body that was black glows like phosphorus." - excerpt from Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
I cannot recommend the following authors to you, as their writing has been considered vile, unsanitary, depraved, even crass. All of whose works have been banned for countless years, in countless places across the globe. But at your own risk: John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Hubert Selby Jr, Henry Miller, William S Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and even our beloved Shakespeare.
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