she might have described swimming in the lake as a child, or said that lakes reminded her of being a child, or asked me if I’d enjoyed swimming as a child, or said that what she’d said about the moon was childish.
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Entries Tagged as 'Prose'
Translations – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 11th, 2012 · No Comments · Description, Dialogue, Prose, Writing
I ‘felt’ in love – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 10th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Writing
She kissed me on the lips and I felt in love with her.
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The Flattering Light of the Subjunctive – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 10th, 2012 · No Comments · Love, Prose, Writing
The relationship I might have had in the flattering light of the subjunctive.
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Tags:Hypothetical·imagination·love·relationships
Nonsense – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 9th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Writing
It didn’t matter; every sentence, regardless of its subject, became mimetic of the action of the train, and the train mimetic of the sentence, and I felt suddenly coeval with its syntax.
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Tags:Wankery
A Little Coordinate of the Universe Permanently Charged – “Freedom: A Novel”, Jonathan Franzen
October 25th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Writing
No mark was left on the wall there, and yet the spot remained clear and distinct forever after. It was a little coordinate of the universe permanently charged and altered by its history. It became, that spot, a quiet third presence in the room with her and Walter on the weekends they later spent alone […]
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After a long time Anne wasn’t a little girl anymore – “All the King’s Men” – Robert Penn Warren
June 26th, 2012 · No Comments · Description, Prose, Writing
Adam and I hunted and camped all over the country, and Anne had been there, a thin-legged little girl about four years younger than we were. And we had sat by the fire in the Stanton house – or in my house – and had played with toys or read books while Anne sat there. […]
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Orwell’s Passions – “My Reading Life” – Bob Carr
May 8th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Quotes, Writing
This, however, is my favourite piece of (Orwell’s) wisdom: “So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.”
Shakespeare’s Phrases – “Shakespeare” – Bill Bryson
May 6th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Writing
His real gift was as a phrase maker. ‘Shakespeare’s language,’ says Stanley Wells, ‘has a quality, difficult to define, of memorability that has cause many phrases to enter the common language.’ Among them: one fell swoop, vanish into thin air, bag and baggage, play fast and loose, go down the primrose path, be in a […]
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Shakespeare’s Words – “Shakespeare” – Bill Bryson
May 5th, 2012 · No Comments · Prose, Writing
Among the words first found in Shakespeare are abstemious, antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, excellent, eventful, barefaced, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, indistinguishable, well-read, zany and countless others (including countless)… He was particularly prolific, as David Chrystal points out, when it came to attaching un- prefixes to existing words to make new words that […]
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Tags:Language·Neologisms·Words
Learning About Women – “Novel Without a Name” – Duong Thu Huong
May 3rd, 2012 · No Comments · History, Prose
I had learned about women on a hill in central Vietnam, from a woman in heat, round as a sausage, slick with sweat. And Hoa? Who had it been for her? I didn’t have the heart to ask her the name of the father of her child. Never. We Never forget anything, never lose anything, […]
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