Let's Talk About Purple Prose

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One man's purple prose is another man's submission to the 'It Pays To Increase Your Word Power' page of the Reader's Digest - where it suddenly becomes worth some money, to boot!:D
 
Perhaps its plain the prose of purple oft pains the perceptions of people. Please patient polite perouser. Purple prose picks passages that please pillagers of prose who pine for its pleasures!

Perhaps a poll may be pointless, but my palate prefers to pick more than a paucity or a patina of pattering participles on my parchment.

~Frank
 
I advocate adjectives and adverbs that announce amassed alliteration-awesome-or awfully in augmented abundance. In fact, I ardently admire the aesthetic additions advertising-almost audibly in my Archeon archives.

(This is what happens to a writer on a v e r y slow day.....)

Seriously though. I have to wade in on the side of prose that purples. To much of today's writing is to me like eating Lean Cusine rather than a hearty feast I hunger for. Give me Bierce or O Henry, Saki or Twain anytime over Hemmingway or King.

Be not afraid of adjectives and adverbs...while rich, they do not add calories!

Frank
 
Funny you should come up with O Henry. The things is that it probably depends on the place you find the purple prose rather than the prose itself.
In a novel all of a sudden: not done.
In a novel here and there some: acceptable
In a short story: fully accepted
 
I admit it is an unusual apetite that I have, but as primarely a poet, I love the play on words and the embellishments-To me it is spice placed on the bare bones of a tale.

As for O Henry...I had a forth grade teacher who used to read to us (as a reward for good scholarship) a O Henry story at least once a week..or a tale from Saki, or Bierce. The flavor of his voice was such as to transport us. He was a gifted story teller. To this day I periodically finger thru my volume of O Henry. My favorite is TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN.

~Frank
 
O Henry had a gift for the ironic as well as the twist ending. What is amazing is the body of work he compiled.

In writers like him the language becomes a character in it self, something I often find lacking in todays stories. I hate period pieces that have 'Modernised' language and mannerisms. its like too many are too lazy to spend the time and effort to make the gilding fit the lilly.

~Frank
 
Richness of text is important, I think, to pull a reader back in. Story, plot, etc., are of course very important, but once you know the story -- even know it in detail -- what brings you back to a book over time? The writing. The richness of the prose, the way the writer uses that prose to refashion the world so that you see it differently. It becomes like a multifaceted gem, which can be used as a prism: turn it this way, you see this aspect of the world; turn another, you see something else, and so on. Or like a fine wine, with subtleties that tickle the tongue and palate (and mind); something that can pull you up short and with a catch in your breath... sometimes even after you've read a piece many times over. All too often this is seen as "purple prose" rather than simply "good, meaty prose".

Again, I think this has to do with our particular period in history; while more people are literate, less people are reading deeply or critically; therefore simple, shallow prose is enough, as they want the story, and seldom read a book again. It's like the difference between looking at a sketch for a sculpture and the finished sculpture. One is informative and certainly takes craft and skill; the other takes art and breathes life into the subject. Too many writers of the 20th century have fallen into the former category, where there's a glibness and surface sparkle, but not much depth.

As for use of irony... anyone up for some John Collier?.....
 
Nice to see Kersh and Beaumont mentioned, by the way... I recently picked up a replacement copy of Nightshade and Damnations... while by no means a "purple" writer, Kersh did write good, meaty prose, and I recommend him to anyone interested in seeing how to tell a lean story that is nonetheless nuanced and biting:

... there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armor, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.
Click to expand...
 
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