Apples, oranges, Hemingway, and Faulkner

[pjthompson]

Random quote of the day:

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

—William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)


This was one of the great literary cat fights of the early 20th Century. Hemingway said of Faulkner: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

Apples and oranges, boys, apples and oranges.

Comments

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree with Hemingway here. Why break your readers rhythm with big words? Is their frustration worth the small bit of pride you'll get from outsmarting them? And why risk having them think you're a pretentious arse?

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

That's true... I guess I read that first quote as someone aiming to send readers looking for the dictionary. Unintentionally doing it isn't something one should avoid, but I think purposefully doing it, unless you're writing academia or heavy literature, is.

[pjthompson]

Yeah, I think intentionality is everything. You should use the words that come naturally to you, not the words you think make you look smarter. Or more of a common man then you really are. It's a voice thing, and no one can define it for anybody else. Faulkner and Hemingway were both wrong, I think, because they were trying to define it for each other, to say the other was "wrong" when there just isn't any wrong and right in this stuff.

[pjthompson]

And why talk down to your readers? Why patronize them? I think there's room for both kinds of writers and readers.