Tortured, Opaque Prose

This morning I read a posting on a blog that began with this sentence.

It's amazing how different some people like to perceive themselves as whilst maintaining an utterly normative attitude to life.

I'm not attributing it because the author claims to be a writer.*

Is it just me or is this about the most tortured sentence you've ever read? Did you actually read one word after another, once, or did you keep backing up? My jaw is slack in amazement that so many words could be strung together and still maintain such an impenetrable, confusing turn of phrase.

I was particularly amazed by the first half: "It's amazing how different some people like to perceive themselves as…". It seems that each successive word forces the reader to reassess the already tentative meaning of all the previous words. By the time I go to the "as" I had in mind so many possible intended meanings that I dash through the rest of the sentence to use it to help me guess what the first half might have meant.

I finally settled on a meaning, but, to quote Truman Capote's remark about Jack Kerouac's writing, "That's not writing; that's typing."
__________
* If you want a hint, it can be found among today's postings in my blogroll at right.

Posted on May 25, 2008 at 13.36 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Writing

3 Responses

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Monday, 26 May 2008 at 21.53
    Permalink

    I suspect the "as" is an orphan, left behind when the writer did some editing or rewording.

    I think what he/she is trying to say is, some average conformists have an amazing way of kidding themselves that they're different.

    The phrase "normative attitude to life" makes me wonder if this writer has suffered damaging exposure to educationese. Just a guess.

  2. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 at 02.51
    Permalink

    Off topic, but I thought you might like this:
    here.

  3. Written by jns
    on Wednesday, 4 June 2008 at 13.27
    Permalink

    I did, Fred. Striking a blow for the obvious!

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