As a fan of Alain Briot I was happy to see his new article. ... Briot needs to seriously edit his articles because some are extremely wordy, indirect, confusing at points and worst of all, detract from the valuable points ...
No doubt Alain is wordy and often circles the subject several times before pinning it to earth, but we must consider both personality and culture. Alain is French, and French is his mother tongue, and the French language is famously wordy. From that last, it follows that French writers would not economize in their use of words; I submit the acclaimed author Marcel Proust for consideration, beside whom Victor Hugo is succinct and direct.
And then there is personality: Alain is a self-auditor; that is to say, he never speaks (or writes) a set piece. Every word is examined both as and after it is uttered, and if it seems to need burnishing, it gets burnished right then, right there. If, on further consideration, a word or thought needs burnishing later, well then, it gets burnished once again. Now, this can be a maddening process for the listener or reader, especially when combined with a cultural tendency toward wordiness, but it also allows the auditor to examine the subject in very much the same way as the author. Frankly (though I am not French), I find much American writing to lack the care with words needed to provide grace and harmony in the utterance and comprehension.
An eternal loopback circuit (also called iterative process) is essential to the artist's mind and work. Art is, after all, nothing if it is not burnishment of reality to show some aspect of the universe that is not immediately apparent.
Alain has also, in this article, very good points about the balance between art and mammon. Worth reading.
