Use of Complex Language, Papa, Sir Karl, Orwell and ee cummings & Borges
2022 Year of Aesthetics Series №7
Thus arose the cult of incomprehensibility , of ‘impressive’ and high sounding language. ~Karl Popper, Reason or Revolution? section IV
For Jack.
Interestingly, during current reading, I came across same example of poor writing used as a subterfuge for those hiding trivial or undeveloped ideas in obscure and overly complex language. Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon and Popper’s Reason or Revolution ? discuss the main problem in writing as opacity to hide lack of ability or lack of argument. Popper uses ‘the cult of incomprehensibility , of ‘impressive’ and high sounding language”, while Laconic Hemmingway uses the word fake. Both address a fraudulent passing off of a trivial or false idea in language meant to confuse and make the reader seem less intelligent.
Hemingway sees this as a fraud that will eventually will fail, and comments that many books about Spain, would have cease to exist without this ploy since the trivial is faked in a false language that never comes to a point. Hemming Ways Death in the Afternoon is as much about writing as it is bullfighting. It is uses the mixture of the story of the bullfight to bring up writing examples and discuss style of writing. So Hemmingway for all his simplification does use a complex model of the bull fight as an illusion to problems in writing. He is pretty up front and does not hide what he is doing nor is he trying to obscure.
ee cummings complex use of language, has mystery’s to solve but as a tacit to obscure. In recently reading i, 6 non-lectures I found cummings uses a complex self generated language, almost a hyper-language. He creates mysteries and puzzles and the reader has to work with to solve , but the reader can solve them and it gets one thinking along the lines of what ee cummings is trying to say, cummings is difficult but rewarding he isn’t trying to be complex to hide but complex to take your mind to a very personal insight of his mind that he wants to share. While cummings does fail sometimes it is not his intent to be incomprehensible
Borges also uses complex structure, and interlinks stories, personal history, puzzles, strange parallelism, and reoccurring characters. He wants you to see things such as death from more than one perspective. Borges is in the same category as cummings, he weaves a maze but wants you too walk through it see the sites and the know the doorways leading out of the labyrinth.
He writes a number of falsified literary works and reviews to let you see the limits of books and the absurdity of ideas taken to boundary limits, but he is not trying to confuse with this complexity, he is clear and lays clues and reminders in various stories to make ideas come to light from multiple perspective.
I end with Orwell’s rules for Politics and the English Language . Rule 6 is always my favorite but the other 5 should be always considered and on rarest of occasions ignored.
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.