“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A writer who is ambitious with precisely picked words can paint a vivid and startling world in our mind’s eyes. D. H. Lawrence was a painter and a poet, who applied these crafts to his novels. When we walk into his countryside, the flowers we discover there aren’t the obvious “red” — they’re coral, or scarlet, or carmine. Lawrence’s memory contains a catalog of beasts, birds and plants, that he observed carefully around Britain and on his world travels. He grasps and sees each of these beings whole, then shares that firm, clear vision with us readers. Wherever we go in Lawrence’s books, we find creatures and nature apt to the season and locale of his scene. He gets his details right, he makes places real and brings them to life.
We trust an author when they weave a tapestry where every thread is true. We feel a spark, when writers surprise us with words that we know, but rarely use. There is a small challenge and joy of discovery, when we are prodded from our familiar comfort zone, when we must reach for the rarely visited boundaries of our knowledge and understanding.
Some writers reach so far, so often, that it feels like they’re showing off. Though that depends on personal taste, on what your comfort zone is, and how much you enjoy being tested. Personally, I like it when a writer has me reaching for the dictionary every few pages; but if I’m looking up several strange words on every page, I soon stop bothering. I reckon, dear reader, that you enjoy at least a little testing, since you’re reading a diary offering you words you don’t know yet. Well, you may know some of them — but there are 60 obscure words in this diary, and I doubt you already know more than 20 of them.