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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Can't get on with it

[5 minute read ] 

Opinion

I have just finished reading Oscar Wilde's, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. To me it is overly mellifluous in its flowery word content. The best bit is the end when Dorian Gray just gets on with action and Oscar Wilde has stopped waffling on about how the character's thought processes unfold. I have a book list and bought four of them at the same time despite the four not being relevant at the same time in my studies. Oxford University Press charge £5.50 delivery charge for a single book or a number of books, so since four of the books on the book-list are published by Oxford University Press I bought them together. 

I am not one for reading introductions, but I know I shall have to at some point. However, I opened Mary Elizabeth Braddon's book 'Lady Audley's Secret' and read a bit in the foreword or introduction section which alluded to why there is a sort of glossary or list of explanation at the end of modern Oxford World Classics books. Incidentally, having read a paragraph or three, I know I shall immensely enjoy reading 'Lady Audley's Secret'. Mary Elizabeth Braddon was clearly a clever woman, just as Oscar Wilde was a clever man, but she, I feel, didn't pontificate about 'Classics' as Oscar Wilde did in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. I can't help but feel that gentlemen of his time were judged by how well they might orate, and on what subjects. Thankfully, it seems that women of the same time were not expected to do so, and this may be why Mary Elizabeth Braddon was considered, no doubt by prominent men critiquing her work, as being somewhat unruly and even 'second-rate' in her writing, but good at being so. My kind of writer, to be sure.

The explanations in the Oxford Classics are there to, let me quote, '[...] Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.' (From the second page of the first leaf in 'Lady Audley's Secret') 

Initially, having read that, I thought 'I can understand pretty much all of the words or sections selected for explanation in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. I have a good bit of healthy experience of reading and an avid curiosity that compels me to learn, and a number of years that have been available to me to indulge myself in learning. I immediately understood that many younger people have not had the same opportunity as I to tap into the same resources I have been able to do; the most obvious and crucial is, of course, time. So, fine, without having links to people to whom many of the archaic expressions were familiar to them, young people may be clueless as to the shape or depth of an expression and not have ready references to fill in any blanks; which is how we all learn; we have to make leaps of insight, and try out our expectations of what we think something means. We can't do that if we are isolated by our learning and knowledge (no-one nearby can understand what we are saying or trying to say). For example, I know what a 'mullion' is but only when I read it in the appropriate context. 'The windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday.' (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 'Lady Audley's Secret' p7). I wrote that section at length, such as it is, because I love semi-colons and many people are confused by them. Here we can see how they are used as separators between sentences that are fundamentally linked as one following sentence adds to the content of the previous one, AND they are used as may be substituting bullet-points in a list. 

After a little more consideration, I came to think that these Oxford Classics would not be read for the joy of reading them so much as being used as study aids for studying English Literature. One of the important messages I have received of late is that good story-telling must flow, sentence after sentence, and not cause the confused reader to leave the text to discover its meaning. In other words, it should not be disjointed or confusing or jump about too much from scene to scene or time to time. The Oxford Classics by dint of necessarily including the explanation for the perceptive explanations, must recognise that they fall into the category of poor writing for the modern world. This however, is not the fault of the writer, who wrote for their period comtemporaries. 

I, myself, adore the Victorian-style written speech in Thomas Hardy books; its complexity, respect and manners. I should like to emulate such speech patterns in my everyday life. In truth, I changed something in my speech some years ago. A Columbian girlfriend, who had like so many non-native English speakers learnt English differently to me, an England national, introduced me to a different option. Indeed, the beginning of the previous sentence shows it. Instead of saying or writing 'I would like...', I say and write, 'I should like....' Breaking it down, effectively I might be saying I am compelled to think in a particular way but I reserve the right to negate what I am saying with an explanatory following clause: 'I should like to thank my esteemed colleagues (but I owe the nothing).' Nonetheless, I am wholly comfortable with 'should' instead of 'would'. I don't use it with any reserve. I even think it shows a smidgeon of education. 

Just like it takes me a little time to get used to the Victorian speech patterns in Thomas Hardy books simply because I am so time-distanced from people who may have spoken so, I am also, in the same way, saddened that the same erosion is continuing and younger people than I need to be coached in understanding words, expressions and meanings that I find quite easy to fathom. Perhaps reading books by Victorian writers is as difficult for them as reading books by 17th and 18th century writers would be for me without translation into modern English language. I haven't seen a Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) 'Gulliver's Travels' book, but I am certain the ones I have seen, using modern English, can be easily read by both young and old in the modern world. It may seem that there has been considerable ironing out of the archaic text to make it acceptable. Shockingly, the story has the protagonist weeing on a burning castle. Try putting that in an animated film for infant children! But I am talking about language, not actions.

'Robinson Crusoe' written by Daniel Defore, was published in 1719. It can be easily understood in modern English and it for me distinctive because it is just a story, like Swift's 'Gulliver's Travel's'. The author is not trying to show off their word-smithery or classical education. But as I said earlier these aspects may have been essential in the kind of world that Oscar Wilde either did live in or aspired to live in, even if he imagined he did or didn't. I suspect there was a good deal of fantasy and falsehood abounding in the higher levels of Victorian society that the poor found utterly shameful. 

Normally, I find books written by many modern women follow a distinct rule for writing; 'Show and don't tell.' This is a writing technique, that I find abhorrent and is currently taught as being essential in Creative Writing courses and degree modules; I can easily do it, and I think quite well, but I definitely won't do it through my own volition. I find it wordy and boring. Having detached emotions most of the time, my enjoyment in reading books is not heightened by reading, at great length, about other people's emotions. I certainly don't want to waste time scrutinising my emotions to get someone else to feel the same way. If my emotions are bubbling to the surface then fine, here they are, otherwise make them up yourself.

The approaching storm on the horizon means people are going to get wet and the trees and shrubs will continue to live. It never means, to me, that one of the characters is in for some personal trouble. I suppose, just like inexperienced readers of Oxford Classics, I don't have the internal tools to help me 'get it'; to make appropriate association and connections when I read books that freely utilise the 'Show and don't tell' technique. I do, however, seem to enjoy books written by Victorian women. If I am honest, I just now questioned myself on why this might be, and briefly considered that it might be that they were bound and circumscribed by their circumstances; circumstances that, I understand were largely created and ordained over by men. I am not a sociologist and had to dispel any notion that I had hit upon something that may be slightly significant. Yet, I cannot dispel an idea that Mary Ann Evans, who used George Elliot as her pen name when she wrote 'Middlemarch' had to be believable as being a man. I think I am supposed to understand a little more about English Literature to even hold this notion in my mind. It is, I should add, not my considered opinion or even a suggestion that there is any validity to my thoughts; they are just questions. As questions they are interesting. As premises for an argument much less so.

It remains that I abhor flowery and wordy messes in books that seem to be there for only three reasons, to show off; or because the writer is inadequate to succintly explain; or because they had fun immersing themselves in an imagined scene. The last is the one that scares me the most since I cannot help but feel they likely live their lives the same way, just as it seems to me the Victorian gentleman lived in a fantastic theatrical sphere that required him making clear his education to all and sundry. If I was better educated I would fit right in, I feel.