But. . .when you cross the line, as Butler and Jameson and others undoubtedly do, from necessary complexity to a style that is incomprehensible even for many academic readers, then to whom are you speaking? If the tree of an actual idea falls in your jargony forest, who will hear it?
No one :-) During my MBA program, I read tons of jargony 'seminal' works and half the time, I was sitting there thinking, "I don't get it. There are nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions and there's a period, so it must be a sentence, so there must be some sense, and yet, I don't get it." Perhaps complicating the way an idea is conveyed somehow makes it seem more lofty and sophisticated -- giving the author more authority on the subject.
I'm starting to see some of that same muddy obscurity in fiction. "White Oleander", for instance, by Janet Fitch is a book which prefers 'jargony' type writing over simply coming out and saying "A did this to B." Instead you have to muddle through imagery and things that don't necessarily go together -- what *is* a 'hole in a charcoal afternoon' anyway? -- and work extra hard to figure *what* exactly is going on. I'm of the view that if, as a reader, I have to work *so* hard to figure out what's going on in a story, then the author didn't do her job properly. Give me simple clarity any day :-)
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Date: 2005-01-12 03:19 am (UTC)No one :-) During my MBA program, I read tons of jargony 'seminal' works and half the time, I was sitting there thinking, "I don't get it. There are nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions and there's a period, so it must be a sentence, so there must be some sense, and yet, I don't get it." Perhaps complicating the way an idea is conveyed somehow makes it seem more lofty and sophisticated -- giving the author more authority on the subject.
I'm starting to see some of that same muddy obscurity in fiction. "White Oleander", for instance, by Janet Fitch is a book which prefers 'jargony' type writing over simply coming out and saying "A did this to B." Instead you have to muddle through imagery and things that don't necessarily go together -- what *is* a 'hole in a charcoal afternoon' anyway? -- and work extra hard to figure *what* exactly is going on. I'm of the view that if, as a reader, I have to work *so* hard to figure out what's going on in a story, then the author didn't do her job properly. Give me simple clarity any day :-)
Nice essay, Kelly. I enjoyed reading it.