I'm a non-native English speaker who have been learning and speaking English professionally for 8 years and I had no problems reading BBC or CNN. However, this article was just beyond me. I struggle to understand many long and convoluted sentence with words that I had never seen before.
I don't know if this is a pattern associated with this particular press or not, but I really couldn't bother reading this beyond the first few paragraphs.
These two sentences, for example:
> Fairly considered, the Texas legislature is more functional than the United States Congress, and more genteel than the House of Commons. But a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state’s reputation for aggressive know-nothingism and proudly retrograde politics.
As far as I can tell, even though they are in the same paragraph and nominally about the same topic, and joined together with that "But", they have nothing to do with each other. To me it looks incoherent.
Frederick Law Olmsted wrote in 1853 that he thought that the Texas Legislature was more respectable (for its “manly dignity and trustworthiness”) than Parliament or Congress. Lawrence Wright is agreeing that if we examine the three bodies impartially, the Texas legislature is more “functional” than the US Congress and more “genteel” than the House of Commons, but that still Olmsted’s characterization is unusual because the Texas legislature has historically been known for its crackpots and ideologues and proud anti-intellectualism.
The “but” is contrasting Wright’s caveat (that if we consider it “fairly” the Texas legislature isn’t as dysfunctional as Congress) with his main point about the Texas legislature’s long-standing negative reputation.
And the House of Commons is less genteel: people shout at each other, interrupt each-other, call each-other names, etc., rather than acting like polite and formal “gentlemen”.
And the sentences you cite make perfect sense to me: the legislature may be relatively functional and courteous, but it still has many irrational members who are ignorant and backwards.
It is funny that in your example of "using big words to try to sound smart," the biggest word used is "know-nothingism."
But seriously, is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker? I'd never heard the too-many-big-words criticism of the New Yorker before, but CNN is certainly the direct opposite.
>is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker
Not especially - they have different audiences: CNN targets a wide demographic and the NYer targets older, affluent liberals, who tend to have advanced levels of education. And I'd argue that even their readership might find some of the stylistic choices made in the NYer annoying - eg: spelling out numerical amounts rather than using Arabic numbers.
You may disagree with the thesis and the choice of flowery language, but I dont' see anything incoherent about it.
The New Yorker is written for a much more literate audience and the goal of its essays is to be engaging to that audience, not just share the daily news.
(Note: there’s nothing inherently bad about either of these editorial choices.)
Just out of curiosity, can you gauge how many percent of the US population would find such essays engaging? Not to start a flamewar, but I am genuinely curious.
Different news orgs tend to have different grade levels of writing. You tend to write towards your target demiograph. The new yorker is aimed at college educated white peopoe I suspect, so would be at a higher level than a paper aimed to the masses.
I learned a lot more that way than I would have had I stuck to reading only what I found easy. I encourage you to persevere.