Quote:
Originally Posted by DMB
Keryl Raist mentions Les Misérables. I wonder if that was in French or English. It was just about the first full-scale novel I ever read in French, and I found it gripping. But I was aware that the language would not translate well. Nineteenth-century French is a language that goes in for purple passages that seem fine in context but would look awkward to eyes used to modern English writing styles."
|
I can read about six words of French, so it was the English version. The unabridged English version. I was in this I'm going to get serious and read a whole lot of the classics phase, and that one just killed me.
Purple prose is a good way of putting it. Serialized novel that was paid for by the word is another. It's a whole lot longer than anything written by a modern author would be.