telophase | Big words = pretentious!

So I was looking up S. P. Somtow/Somtow Sucharitkul on Amazon.com to see what I could recommend to

meganbmoore on her 50 books by PoC post. When perusing the reviews for his The Crow tie-in novel (because I read it, although I don't remember anything about it), I came across a less-than-flattering review by someone who didn't like the chaotic/confusing feel of the book. This excerpt really torqued me, however:

But the main thing that really annoyed me about this book is the author's use of big words like 'obsequiousness,' 'superannuated,' and other literary gems of pretention that I'm willing to bet did not come from his personal vocabulary . . . especially since English isn't even his native tongue. The author needs to learn that knowing how to use a Thesaurus doesn't make you a better writer.

Hey! Apparently you're not allowed to use big words if you don't speak English as your native language!

I think the reviewer was a bit miffed that someone dared put prose and plot that makes you think and doesn't draw conclusions for you into his comic tie-in novel.

And now I really want to reread the book. Amazon affiliate link: Crow, The: Temple of Night (Crow)

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What really gets me is that, as obsessed as I was with Loony Tunes when I was growing up, I know that the vocabulary that they used in those cartoons (and even later Spielberg creations like Animaniacs) would definitely confound and frustrate today's high-schoolers. I know this because I showed some Animaniacs episodes in the 9th grade world geography class that I taught (don't ask, I was making a point at the time), and they did not get a lot of the jokes because of the level of English involved.

Mesh this observation with the fact that since the 1980s, the verbal SAT scores have been on a steady decline, and there is no doubt in my mind that kids today, and even people who are my age are way dumber, aggregatly, than our predecessors.

People aren't dumber. They're being taught less well, because of the ongoing Republican war against the government. Some of the most effective battles have been against public schools.

I think the reviewer felt defensive that his vocabulary is smaller than someone for whom English is not their native tongue.

Ah, anti-intellectualism. Guaranteed to make me grind my teeth in frustration with the human species almost every time.

WTF!!!

Look him up on Wiki or a more reliable source: he also writes operas, directs movies, is related to Thai royalty, and is otherwise an entertainingly larger than life personality, if I remember correctly.

His fiction is extremely uneven (ie, can be good, can be dreadful). I vaguely recall enjoying Jasmine Nights, which I believe is semi-autobiographical.

I read and re-read Mallworld as a kid. I think it informed a lot of my twisted outlook on life.*

I started reading Jasmine Nights back in grad school, but had to return it to the library before I could finish it. I should see if I can get my hands on it again.

* I can still quote: "When I have a baby, I'm going to have it the old-fashioned way! I'm going to buy it from Storkways, Inc.!"

I loved his Inquestor series -- unfortunately when I ran into him at a convention (I THINK it was Worldcon in Winnipeg), the first words out of my mouth were "I loved your books in high school!" *shudder of embarrassment*. He seemed to be a really nice, really bright guy.

You remember correctly. When I was a teenager we used to see him at Independence Day parties thrown by friends of my parents'. We also once went to see an orchestral composition of his performed, which was... odd. (At one point a bunch of kids started reading out loud from Mallworld to simulate alien voices.)

I don't recall if I ever got around to reading any of his books other than Starship and Haiku. I know I have others around here somewhere.

I get letters from around the world from people who apologize, in crystalline schoolbook grammar, for not having English as their first language. Yes, which means they actually had to memorize the rules rather than pick up their lingo on the streets? Lord, inflict on me a few more such writers...

That line about using a thesaurus is parroted from I don't know how many "good writing" articles written by semi-literates. Heaven forbid anyone learn something from reading a book or looking up a definition.

What??

I've read some of the Aquiliad, some of his SF, and Mallworld, but I really enjoyed Jasmine Nights from a meta perspective--trying to peek at the author through the well-wrought narrative curtain he's put up.

Ouch! Proud non-native English speaker/writer here, who takes pride in knowing the definitions of words like 'malinger,' 'pedantic,' and 'loquacious,' among "other literary gems of pretention." When did people start assuming that it's poor and pompous writing to use SAT words... correctly?

Anyway, I've never heard of these books *SHOT* They look fun!

We should only use words that everyone knows, in order that we not make people feel bad, apparently. You misanthropic lout!

At any rate, as mentioned elsewhere his books are up and down. If you like insane parody SF, see if you can find Mallworld. Jasmine Nights is the story of a young Thai man growing up in an upper-class highly traditional Thai household, where his grandfather has several wives, and is apparently a fictionalized autobiography. Other than the Crow novel mentioned in the post, I haven't read any other of his work (and I only read the first few chapters of JN XD). :D

He's got a lot of music up on Amazon, though, I need to check if he's on iTunes. He's also the director of the Royal (National?) Thai Symphony, or something like that. A fascinating person.

Yeah. This reminds me of high school when all the other kids would ask my father and/or teachers what I'd just said, because they couldn't understand half the words I said.

Of course, they just thought that I was stuck up, not just using the first words that came to mind.

Been there, done that. Growing up a voracious reader in an academic family will do that to you. *twitch*

Big words = pretentious!

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