Do long complicated sentences and multiple difficult words make it great literature?

Question

The problem with reading fiction other than Crime and Romance is that the syntax of sentences is too comlpicated; Sentences are too long -spanning 4-5-6 lines and there are multiple words per page that if you looked up each time in dictionary you will spend equal time looking up and reading.

I am fairly intelligent. I have post graduate training and my vocalulary is better than most people I know -my guess is at least 25,000, 30,000 words - but I am still having this difficulty!
If I have difficulty reading these works of Roth, Updike and Bellow my guess is that 95% of readers do.

So my question is: is it a prerequisite of 'great' literature to be difficult to read? Do the authors do this deliberately or is this their natural flow of language - when they talk in everyday conversation, do they talk in sentences 50-75 words long? Do they automatically discard 97% population from their potential readers and just don't care to communicate with average Joes?

Answer 1

No, I don't think being difficult to read is a prerequisite of "great" literature, but I think some great literature can be difficult for us to read today. We think differently, act differently, talk and communicate differently than even people 20-30 years ago. Think about the impact of the Internet, e-mail and text messaging are having on our styles of communicating. Also our very busy crammed full life styles where we expect everything to be easy and quick impacts our communication and writing.

I think great characters with whom the reader can identify, great plots that balance reality and the suspension of disbelief and a writing style that flows and is enjoyable (not necessarily easy) to read make great literature.

I do have a suggestion for you though, as I have recently taken up reading "the classics" myself. I had a very difficult time at first also. I started out reading each book twice. I would read it the first time, skimming over parts, words, etc... I did not immediately grasp. Instead I would try to get the general feel for the book and understand the plot line. The next time I would take more care and really read the book, sometimes re-reading a paragraph or sentence a few time or looking back at earlier passages to make sense of the current passage. I also would read many books by the same author. We know that each author has their own writing style and after about 1 1/2 books I would find myself reading in the "rhythm" of their style and it was much easier to read their books then. One more thing, find books with through end notes and use them prodigiously!

Answer 2

I don't think it's a prerequisite....
I think that society today has dumbed everything down so that people can understand. Look at some of the questions in yahoo answer. I can hardly understand the language being used today... wat is up wid dat?!
Television and print has become focused on the younger generations so when they are given a text that requires them to actually read real words (gasp!) they get confused.
Shakespeare and other authors from that time period use language that needs decoding, I agree. Although, I think you can get the gist of a book if you continue reading. There are many words that I do not understand sometimes, but it all makes sense when I have finished the paragraph.
I don't think that people like Hemingway or Roth would discard having a conversation with an average joe.
Many authors use their conversations with 'average joe's' to create stories and plot lines...

Answer 3

No, not at all.

Jonathan Franzen' s "Corrections" is easily readable.

Raymond Carver's short-stories are written at the 7th-grade level and are sheer genius.

You won't go to the dictionary for any of Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley's novels. Nor J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye, Nine Short Stories, Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters, Seymour: an Introduction).

You can read Hemingway and Fitzgerald without the Oxford.

Tim O'Brien's brilliant "Going After Cacciato" is in plain English.

Early Roth (Good-bye Columbus, Portnoy) is readable by high-schoolers.

Joseph Heller (Catch 22, Something Happened) can be read w/o references.

Roddy Doyle--great Irish writer--Committments; Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, etc, is another...

The list goes on and on...granted there are those--Pynchon, Gaddis, Faulkner; in today's club, David Foster Wallace who like to demonstrate their verbal pyrotechnics. In older days, cats like Melville used words that they spoke with that in today's world as our vocabularies have shrunk, have disappeared.

Answer 4

The short answer is an emphatic " NO! Much depends on the time period in which it is written. Serious literature of the 19th century, for instance, is much more formal than that of today. This is simply the way people wrote (and spoke) at the time. Shakespeare was written for an audience little more educated than our couch potatoes of today, although that would have been the common speech of the time. A superior writer can take complex concepts and explain them simply enough to be understood by nearly everyone. Inferior writers tend to cloak meanings in fancy language, often to the detriment of the story. One man's opinion.

Answer 5

Lengthy sentences are not required for great literature. Some great literature does not fit your description. Popular opinion has a little to do with that. Also, time period and common language of the day influences what is great. There is also a scholastic side. Acadamia will decide something based on different standards than "common" folk. There is nothing wrong with those standards; they are just not mine. Lastly, I encourage you to keep trying on occassion. Growth of your vocabulary cannot be a bad thing unless you spend so much time "growing" that you are unproductive otherwise.

Answer 6

You consider Roth and Updike difficult? I'll give you Bellow...but not the other two. What must you think of Faulkner and Dostoevsky? Anyway....my short and simple answer to your question is No. Read Hemingway. He never used a long complicated sentence.

Answer 7

No, good plot and characters make for great literature. All of the long complicated sentences and multiple difficult words aren't worth anything if, when you actually break down the meanings, the sentences don't make any sense.

You would expect good literature to be more complex than your average newspaper article, which still too many people can't read, but overly complex doesn't do any good if it doesn't mean anything.

Answer 8

No, although that's a misconception to write big words to sound smart. Some writers I've known do that. But unless you know what you're talking about, you're going to sound like a jackass to everybody else. But, I'm turned off books that have a lot of words I can't understand piled on each paragraph. Remember, people have to understand what you're saying in order to form an opinion. And some people do seem to talk 50-75 sentences long but most people prefer to keep talk simple. Writing has to sound natural, and some people do talk with big words. However, most of us don't. So, keep big words at a minimum. Authors who do that, at least to me, want to sound smart, but they wind up sounding like I said, like jackasses. Have you ever seen that episode of Friends where Joey, wanting to sound smart, writes what he was going to say and switches to the big thesaurus word to sound smart? Well then, no one could understand what the heck he was saying. Keep it simple if you want, and write words only you are comfortable of knowing.

Answer 9

Sounds like you might have been reading too much Faulkner. Try Hemingway or Steinbeck.
There's a lot of "great literature" that's not difficult to understand. Not all good writers are Joycean.

Answer 10

it doesn't

great literature could come in many forms, some of the greatest literature of any culture's history are composed of simple words and sentences

the main thing is for the writer to be able to convey his ideas or to express what he feels

some authors who write very complicated pieces of literature can't be blamed for being quite a bit "overeducated," they are used to forming sentences and conveying thoughts that way