The Curse of the Boa Constrictor Paragraph

Line engraving by P. Vanderbank, 1683.

I read more poetry than a human being should, and have been changed for the worse in result. I have no more patience for bloated prose, no more of what used to be called charity for the implied intentions of a writer. I want the prose to move.

What do I mean by bloated? This would depend on context, and on how much energy a writer can bring to words.

For example, I would never call bloated this passage by Thomas Browne:

"If we more nearly consider the condition of Vipers and noxious Animals, we shall discover another higher provision of Nature: how, although in their paucity she hath not abridged their malignity, yet hath she notoriously effected it by their secession or latitancy. For not only offensive insects, as Hornets, Wasps, and the like, but sanguineous corticated Animals, as Serpents, Toads, and Lizards, do lie hid and betake themselves to coverts in the Winter. Whereby most Countries enjoying the immunity of Ireland and Candie, there ariseth a temporal security from their venoms; and an intermission of their mischiefs, mercifully requiting the time of their activities."

[From "Of the Viper," in Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Third Book), 1646-1672.]

His writing works the tongue and ear while remaining dense with detail, but for all of its thickness of texture, it moves rapidly; it keeps the subjects and verbs clear.

In contrast, here are two paragraphs from a story I tried to read this afternoon:

"Whatever particle of a doubt there may have been in Mrs. Owens’s own mind, there was considerable more of doubt and apprehension in Mr. Evening’s as he weighed, in his rooming house, the rash decision he had made to visit formidable Mrs. Owens in -- one could not say her business establishment, since she had none -- but her background of accumulation of heirlooms, which vague world was, he could only admit, also his own. Because he had never known or understood people well, and he was the most insignificant of 'collectors,' he was at a loss as to why Mrs. Owens should feel he had anything to give her, and since her 'legend' was too well known to him, he knew she, likewise, had nothing at all to give him, except, and this was why he was going, the 'look-in' which his visit would give him. Whatever risk there was in going to see her, and there appeared to be some, he felt, from 'warnings' of a queer kind from those who had dealt with her, it was worth something just to get inside, even though again he had been informed by those in the business it would be doubtful if he would be allowed to mention 'purchase' and in the end it was also doubtful he would be allowed even a close peek.

"On the other hand, if Mrs. Owens wanted him to tell her something -- this crossed his mind as he went toward her huge pillared house, though he could not imagine even vaguely what he could have to tell her, and if she was mad enough to think him capable of entertaining her, for after all she was a lonely ancient lady on the threshold of death, he would disabuse her of all such expectations almost as soon as they had met. He was uneasy with old women, he supposed, though in his work he spent more time with them than with other people, and he wanted, he finally said out loud to himself, that hand-painted china cup, 1910, no matter what it might cost him. He fancied she might yield it to him at some atrocious illegal price. It was no more improbable, after all, than that she had invited him in the first place. Mrs. Owens never invited anybody, that is, from the outside, and the inside people in her life had all died or were incapacitated from paying calls. Yes, he had been summoned, and he could hope at least therefore that what everybody else told him was at least thinkable -- purchase, and if that was not in store for him, then the other improbable thing, 'viewing.'"

[From "Mr. Evening," in The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy.]

Crammed with needless qualifications (he supposed, he fancied, after all, he felt, even though again, he could only admit), these boa constrictor paragraphs coil around and swallow meaning without offering any counter virtues of surprise or fire. In a novel they would seem ponderous; in a short story, incongruous.

And in a poem, of course, unbearable... as Wordsworth and Swinburne have shown to my pain.