When does style get in the way of content?

A large part of what sets literary fiction apart from genre fiction is style. Genre fiction is about getting from Point A to Point B and so on as quickly and enticingly as possible. It's about entertainment, keeping the reader turning pages, engaging him or her in the plot.

But would you say that John Grisham has a completely different writing style than, say, James Patterson? (We're talking style, not content.) If a page from each writer were spread out before you, with comparable action going on, would you be able to tell which author is which? Probably not. Because that's not the point of genre fiction.

Literary fiction, however, is often more concerned with character, with language and ideas. Authors find a way to explore these things in the style of their prose. There's the stripped down minimalism of, say, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. There's the free-spirited conversational prose of Jack Kerouak. There's Alice Munro's restrained, precise style that's also incredibly empathetic, and Joyce Carol Oates's breathless but controlled prose. In literary fiction, in other words, style is part of the content.

There's no doubt that at the hands of a skilled writer, style is more than a useful tool; it's a profound means of expression, a challenge, a way to write beauty or violence or hatred or love or sorrow without actually writing it. But what happens when style takes over and becomes style for style's sake? A way for a talented writer to flaunt his or her skills at the sacrifice of, well, everything else?

Take James Frey, for example. I've been talking about him quite a bit lately because I recently read his new novel, Bright Shiny Morning. For the most part, I thought the book was brilliant. However, there were times when Frey's chaotic, no commas, run-on sentences style of writing was in direct contrast with a particular character or scene. That style works effectively during scenes of chaos--a shooting in Venice Beach, an uncertain, feverish first kiss--but other times, not so much. Not to mention its incongruence with controlled, well-educated characters. This, to me, speaks of Frey's "F 'em if they don't like it" mentality to style. While his could be a powerful tool, it instead becomes an obtrusive, look-at-me-the-author shout to the reader, which distracts from the precision of his observations and frequent beauty of the language itself.

What are your thoughts? Who are some authors whose style tends to overshadow content? Or, on the other hand, whose style perfectly complements it?

20.07.2009. 12:39

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