Excerpt #4: Hawaii

These are from a book called A Pocket Guide to the Hawaiian Islands. While in Hawaii, I bought some little touristy books because they had nice glossy pictures. One book I bought just because I liked the paper it was printed on. I've been pleased with my touristy books so far. The pictures are actually not too bad. The writing is generally ok too, but in this particular book... Well, this book is written by a guy who writes coffee table books for a living. So maybe that explains it.

This first excerpt is written about the big island of Hawaii:

Northeast trade winds stream across the young landscape, dropping moisture on the windward rain forests, funneling through the saddle areas, accelerating down the leeward declines, and eddying around Mauna Loa's buxom mass.

Come on now. Really? Buxom? Sheesh.

This second excerpt is a caption for a double-page spread of a sunset (with palm fronds bordering it):

A golden path of fading sunlight bestows its blessing of romance on a tropical paradise. Such soothing displays of idyllic beauty contrast the jagged coastlines, volcanic peaks, and raw, elemental forces of the Hawaiian Islands.

They couldn't have just written, "Sunset off the coast of Hawaii", or whatever. :o)

I wouldn't mind this writing style so much if I'd encountered it less frequently, but almost every paragraph is written like this, thick with heavy prose. It's a bit much for me. I can only take the book in small doses, and I mostly look at the pictures.