Came across in Chandler this example of a sentence structure I don’t care for and seem to come across fairly frequently (The Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 594):
Indeed, the pleasures of the chase proved considerably more eventful and certainly more dangerous for senior personnel than many a battle field.
I want this to instead read something like:
Indeed, the pleasures of the chase proved considerably more eventful and certainly more dangerous for senior personnel than the occupational perils of the battle field.
It’s not the lack of an exactly parallel structure per se that bothers me, but the logical problem that Chandler seems to want to contrast the dangers of a leisure activity (hunting) with the dangers of an occupational activity (battle) yet winds up comparing the dangers of the pleasures of a leisure activity with the dangers of an occupational activity. This seems to me not just non-parallel in form but also a little unequal in content.
But then I will think of “austere composition” and of how I must really prefer Chandler’s sentence to my own, as being more natural —
(The austere style) does not in the least shrink from using frequently harsh sound-clashings which jar on the ear ; like blocks of building stone that are laid together unworked, blocks that are not square and smooth, but preserve their natural roughness and irregularity.
And more:
its clauses (are) not parallel in structure, or sound, nor slaves to a rigid sequence, but noble, brilliant, free.
In the end, we know exactly what Chandler meant, which is the precondition for writing a post of this kind.
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