From Thoughts to Thought Process
In the age of tweets and soundbites, it’s surprising to note that many classic writers used sentences that stretched across half a page — or more. Writers like Marcel Proust, Miguel de Cervantes, and others from older times often wrote in a style that feels alien to modern readers. Their sentences weren’t just long for the sake of it; they reflected a way of thinking, feeling, and experiencing the world that was intricately tied to the slower pace of life and the depth of their explorations.
Why did the old-time writers gravitated toward long, winding sentences? and what does this style offers us today? We won’t assume you’ve read Proust or Cervantes — we’ll keep our focus on the how and why of their writing style, rather than diving into specific books.
Why Use Long Sentences?
Generally people write in the way they think. So does it mean that in the olden days people thought in this manner of multiple nested clauses?
It’s a fascinating question, and while we can’t know for sure how people thought in the past, the style of writing from those times gives us some clues about their intellectual and cultural priorities.
In older times, the written word was often considered a high art form, and long, ornate sentences were seen as a mark of intellectual rigor and sophistication. Writers were influenced by classical rhetoric, which valued balance, symmetry, and elaborate argumentation. These traditions shaped not only how they wrote but possibly how they organized their thoughts.
Formal education emphasized disciplines like philosophy, theology, and rhetoric, which required careful, structured thinking. The mental habits formed in such an education — layering arguments, qualifying statements, and drawing connections — likely influenced writing styles.
Life was generally slower-paced, allowing for prolonged contemplation. Authors and their audiences had the time and patience to engage with dense texts. This slower pace may have encouraged more intricate and expansive thinking patterns. Writing often served as a tool for persuasion, moral instruction, or philosophical exploration, not just for storytelling or entertainment. Complex sentences allowed for detailed reasoning and nuance, mirroring the kind of layered thinking valued in those contexts.
If their sentences seem complex, does that mean people in the past thought in nested clauses and parentheses? Probably not exactly. It’s unlikely that all people thought in nested clauses. Educated individuals might have cultivated a way of thinking aligned with their writing style. That said, thought and language are not identical — writing often organizes thoughts more deliberately than the brain’s natural flow.
So, there’s a deeper truth at play. Writing takes time — more time than thinking — and as writers composed their sentences, their minds naturally generated related ideas, exceptions, and nuances. Rather than starting a new sentence, they often wove these additional thoughts into the first one.
For example, imagine an author begins with:
“A knight should always be brave.”
Before they finish writing, they think of an exception: “But what if the knight faces an unbeatable foe?” Instead of stopping and starting anew, they expand:
“A knight should always be brave, except when his bravery would lead to certain death, for in such cases prudence is the greater virtue.”
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This desire to capture the full complexity of an idea often led to the use of commas, brackets, dashes, and other punctuation to layer thoughts into a single sentence. It’s as if the writer was trying to preserve the flow of thought as it unfolded in real time.
The Art of Nested Clauses
Take Marcel Proust, for example (even if you have not read him). He is renowned for his long, intricate sentences. One passage from Swann’s Way illustrates this beautifully:
“So much did I love that good night that I reached the stage of hoping that it would come as late as possible, so as to prolong the time of respite during which Mamma would not yet have appeared. Sometimes when, after kissing me, she opened the door to go, I longed to call her back, to say to her ‘Kiss me just once again,’ but I knew that then she would at once look displeased, for the concession which she made to my wretchedness and agitation in coming up to me with this kiss of peace always annoyed my father, who thought such ceremonies absurd, and she would have liked to try to induce me to outgrow the need, the custom of having her there at all, which was a very different thing from letting the custom grow up of my asking her for an additional kiss when she was already crossing the threshold.”
In one sentence, Proust captures a child’s yearning, a mother’s conflict, a father’s disapproval, and the broader family dynamics — all while weaving in the narrator’s retrospective understanding. As a reader, you aren’t just told about the mother’s goodnight kiss; you are led through a labyrinth of feelings and reflections, experiencing the moment as if it were your own.
More Than Thoughts: The Thought Process
This brings us to a key idea: writers like Proust weren’t merely sharing their thoughts or the thoughts of their characters. They were inviting us into the thought process. Their long sentences, full of digressions and qualifications, reflect the way the human mind actually works — wandering from one idea to another, circling back, adding layers of nuance.
This style doesn’t just tell the reader what to think; it shows how the writer or character arrived at a particular idea. It’s not about delivering conclusions but about recreating the act of thinking itself.
When readers follow a character’s or narrator’s thought process, they gain a deeper understanding of their situation. More importantly, they feel a stronger sense of empathy. Entering the mind of another person — even a fictional one — is an act of connection.
For example, in the Proust passage above, the narrator’s emotional turmoil is palpable. His longing for one more kiss, his fear of disappointing his father, and his awareness of his mother’s desire to gently wean him off the ritual all combine to create a vivid picture of his world. The complexity of the sentence mirrors the complexity of the emotions, making it almost impossible for the reader not to sympathize.
Long sentences, when done well, allow readers to feel not just a single emotion but the layers of emotions, thoughts, and memories that make up human experience.
A Style Worth Revisiting
While modern writing often prioritizes clarity and brevity, the long, winding sentences of old-time writers remind us of the beauty of complexity. They capture not just the content of thought but the texture of thinking. They ask us to slow down, to savor language, and to immerse ourselves in the richness of human experience.
So next time you encounter a long sentence, resist the urge to skim. Instead, let it guide you into the writer’s mind. You might find, as readers of Proust and Cervantes have for centuries, that these sentences hold a depth of meaning and feeling that shorter ones could never achieve.
The writing style of old-time authors may seem daunting at first, but it holds valuable lessons. In a world that often rushes toward simplicity, these intricate sentences remind us that complexity is not something to fear. It is, after all, how we think, how we feel, and how we live.
What do you think? Do you enjoy this kind of writing, or does it feel too heavy in today’s fast-paced world?
