All Aussies Adore Alliteration
May. 14th, 2004 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanBut I happen to think it's one of the most annoying literary devices known to mankind.
I bought a copy of Sarah MacDonald's Holy Cow! while in Singapore, and have been slogging through it at work for the past two days. The book came highly recommended by several non-Americans in the Oaks, so I jumped on the chance to buy it. But the author. OMG. This woman needs to be SHOT AND DISEMBOWLED, or perhaps tortured ala Gibson's 'The Passion' for ruining what could have been a great read with horrible technique. Namely, alliteration. Again, and again, and again, and again. Four or five sentences of it in every single paragraph on every single page And christ, it sets my teeth on edge (and the fact that it's reduced me to ranting in this fashion should be taken as an indication of how fucking ANNOYING I find it).
Some especially heinous examples:
Describing her first impressions of Kashmir after disembarking from her plane: "More coffins wait in the terminal, which is a low room ringed with soldiers standing at stiff attention. They carry massive machine guns and sport major mustaches and bizzarely big smiles (131)."
Great way to detract from the serious atmosphere of your first impressions of the mess that is Kashmir with annoying language.
It's sophomoric, tacky, cloying, and yes, smarmy. What makes it an even worse crime is that MacDonald continually employs it while discussing serious issues:
From a passage where the author describes visiting a Sikh temple: "I feel a sweet joy, a sense of shared serenity within the human spirit (103)." Oh, should I mention? The passages on Sikhs feature not only alliteration, but a preponderance of the stuff with words beginning with s's and b's - for the 's' in Sikh and 'b' in the beards they wear long, presumably. Gag me, MacDonald, you aren't being cute, just annoying.
On the religious clashes which resulted in the Hindu destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in the '90's:
"Until now the mosque's destruction could be dismissed as a mindless act by a mob of minority extremists (164)." And so forth. This section of the book could have been a grave and moving passage on religious tolerance, but MacDonald's writing ruins it with its trite and cutesy tone.
So why do I keep reading? Because I spent $20.00 on the damn thing, for starters. And more importantly, because there's a good story behind all of the excrement that is MacDonald's contrived prose. When she forgets to alliterate, her story can be quite moving - witness the scene in which a modern Indian woman's marriage to a man outside of her mother's selections leads to the mother's suicide and the woman's social exile from the country. That's heavy stuff. Or take this paragraph, on a great purification festival being held on the banks of the Ganges:
"I sense a spiritual purity in the putrid air. The big bathing day is tomorrow... I join Titi and Neeraj (who's now carrying a compass and a canteen) onboard a boat bobbing on the black Ganges. We pass small huddles of floating shapes softly singing to the splashing of oars. The soft first light falls upon a tide of pilgrims patiently and quietly walking along the bank toward the holy spot. Some stop to shave their heads, for every hair shed is ten thousand lives that don't have to be lived. Piles of black hair stain the sand. (165)". MacDonald's describing a fascinating scene, but the mother. fucking. alliteration spoils it entirely, as well as clashing with her more poetic and descriptive sentences. (And by the way, there alliteration just gets worse from that paragraph on.)
If I'm not careful, I'm going to quote the entire book, because the alliteration does. Not. Let. Up. And it's a real shame and disappointment. I'm sorely tempted to search for an author webpage where I can email and scream at her for her godawful style.
That will be all.
I bought a copy of Sarah MacDonald's Holy Cow! while in Singapore, and have been slogging through it at work for the past two days. The book came highly recommended by several non-Americans in the Oaks, so I jumped on the chance to buy it. But the author. OMG. This woman needs to be SHOT AND DISEMBOWLED, or perhaps tortured ala Gibson's 'The Passion' for ruining what could have been a great read with horrible technique. Namely, alliteration. Again, and again, and again, and again. Four or five sentences of it in every single paragraph on every single page And christ, it sets my teeth on edge (and the fact that it's reduced me to ranting in this fashion should be taken as an indication of how fucking ANNOYING I find it).
Some especially heinous examples:
Describing her first impressions of Kashmir after disembarking from her plane: "More coffins wait in the terminal, which is a low room ringed with soldiers standing at stiff attention. They carry massive machine guns and sport major mustaches and bizzarely big smiles (131)."
Great way to detract from the serious atmosphere of your first impressions of the mess that is Kashmir with annoying language.
It's sophomoric, tacky, cloying, and yes, smarmy. What makes it an even worse crime is that MacDonald continually employs it while discussing serious issues:
From a passage where the author describes visiting a Sikh temple: "I feel a sweet joy, a sense of shared serenity within the human spirit (103)." Oh, should I mention? The passages on Sikhs feature not only alliteration, but a preponderance of the stuff with words beginning with s's and b's - for the 's' in Sikh and 'b' in the beards they wear long, presumably. Gag me, MacDonald, you aren't being cute, just annoying.
On the religious clashes which resulted in the Hindu destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in the '90's:
"Until now the mosque's destruction could be dismissed as a mindless act by a mob of minority extremists (164)." And so forth. This section of the book could have been a grave and moving passage on religious tolerance, but MacDonald's writing ruins it with its trite and cutesy tone.
So why do I keep reading? Because I spent $20.00 on the damn thing, for starters. And more importantly, because there's a good story behind all of the excrement that is MacDonald's contrived prose. When she forgets to alliterate, her story can be quite moving - witness the scene in which a modern Indian woman's marriage to a man outside of her mother's selections leads to the mother's suicide and the woman's social exile from the country. That's heavy stuff. Or take this paragraph, on a great purification festival being held on the banks of the Ganges:
"I sense a spiritual purity in the putrid air. The big bathing day is tomorrow... I join Titi and Neeraj (who's now carrying a compass and a canteen) onboard a boat bobbing on the black Ganges. We pass small huddles of floating shapes softly singing to the splashing of oars. The soft first light falls upon a tide of pilgrims patiently and quietly walking along the bank toward the holy spot. Some stop to shave their heads, for every hair shed is ten thousand lives that don't have to be lived. Piles of black hair stain the sand. (165)". MacDonald's describing a fascinating scene, but the mother. fucking. alliteration spoils it entirely, as well as clashing with her more poetic and descriptive sentences. (And by the way, there alliteration just gets worse from that paragraph on.)
If I'm not careful, I'm going to quote the entire book, because the alliteration does. Not. Let. Up. And it's a real shame and disappointment. I'm sorely tempted to search for an author webpage where I can email and scream at her for her godawful style.
That will be all.
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*laughs*
on 2004-05-14 01:42 pm (UTC)Ok, I've gotten off on some kinda tangent here (I guess I really don't like it as well, huh?), but I blame you. You hit a nerve. :P Sorry, if there was too much anology here. I couldn't really find any other words to describe my distaste. ^^;;
she's on the smarm list