|
I think part of it is the limitations of technology at the time a given book was written. For example Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur" has long blocks of description right from the start. That's because readers back when it was written hadn't seen the 'lay of the land' via pictures or TV documentary like we can now days. They had a choice of long descriptions, sketches, or actually going to the place where the story was set. That's why Matthew Brady is still remembered as well since he was the 1st person to actually take pictures of what a real battlefield looked like and he changed the average person's knowledge of what war actually was. Prior to that all that was available was words on a page.
|