there must be an ebb.

I've already expressed my love for DH Lawrence in previous posts and his short story "The Rocking Horse Winner" is a prime example of why I love him so much.

Just look at the first two sentences of the story: "There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust." The first sentence sounds like the beginning of a bedtime story my dad would make up when I was a tiny tot. It is a classic story beginning: "There once was a woman who had no luck." I appreciate that Lawrence treats his story AS a story immediately.

Next, read these first two sentences aloud. They have an excellent rhythm and even a slant rhyme in "luck" and "dust." Its very poetic.

The story as a whole is conscious of itself as a story--I feel that Lawrence does this intentionally, much like Rushdie does with his stories--and the first paragraph lays out the map of this story. It touches on several pillars of the story: luck and the mother's lack thereof, the hardness in her heart towards her children, and how her eyes and her childrens' betrayed their true feelings for one another. The characters are constantly striving for luck throughout, especially Paul. We see the mother's heart truly turn cold and hard in her guilt and anxiety for Paul and his madness over luck. And finally, it is Paul's eyes that Lawrence describes so intently, while the boy is mad. It is his eyes that make his mother finally notice something is terribly wrong:

"I've got to know for the Derby! I've got to know for the Derby!" the child reiterated, his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness.

His mother noticed how overwrought he was.

'You'd better go to the seaside. Wouldn't you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? I think you'd better,' she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because of him.

But the child lifted his uncanny blue eyes...

Lawrence writes in these details in the beginning, but lets the story flesh them out and carry their dense meanings.

The "whisper" of the house is another example of Lawrence's effective use of symbols in the story. At first I thought the whisper for "more money!" was just a one time metaphor, but the whispers, in fact, turned out not just to be a striking metaphor of the mother's greed, but a vital part of the story. Lawrence is very intentional and these symbols and themes hardly have a single meaning or implication; instead, they span the story and give it depth.

get me an aspirin.

This is my third time--at least--reading this piece by Orwell. And every time I read it, I cannot help but agree with him more emphatically than the last (about most writers today, that is). Orwell wins me over every time I read this piece because, after reading those examples of pretentious and plain bad writing, I never want to write pretentiously or be unclear again. In fact, the most persuasive element of Orwell's piece is his portrayal of bad writers and their literary laziness. I don't want to be one of those writers who use metaphors "without knowledge of their meaning" and mix "incompatible metaphors," obviously not interested in what I'm saying. Orwell makes me question my writing.

Do I save myself the trouble of picking out appropriate words just to "pad a sentence with extra syllables [to] give it an appearance of symmetry?"

Am I a pretentious writer, using words I don't really know how to use?

Lord, I hope not. This is why I do my best to stick to his rules (my old politics professor actually told us that if we didn't stick to Orwell's six rules in our term papers, he would personally find us and hand us back our D-grade papers).

One point Orwell makes (and I think this is the most important point of the piece) is that if "thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Lazy writing indicates lazy thinkers. I don't want to be a lazy thinker, nor do I want my political leaders to be lazy thinkers. But, as Orwell said, writing with ready-made phrases and big words is tempting because it is can be done without truly thinking yet still sound intelligent. He says (I particularly enjoyed this) that using this prepackaged style of writing is a "continuous temptation" for writers--it is like having "a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow." Why go through the headache of thinking when you can numb it out with cliche and pretension? How ingenious.

a shoulder glance

Here is a quick flashback of the last five Lanham chapters on close reading:

The introduction introduces us to the "C-B-S" theory of prose. That is, prose build around the three central values of Clarity, Brevity, and Sincerity. Lanham says that "the theory argues that prose ought to be maximally transparent and minimally self-conscious, never seen and never noticed." But if you follow this theory to its full extent, you will find that your writing is Clearly Boring, Sorry.

In chapter one, Lanham differentiates between the noun and verb styles. Noun style is based on, well, nouns and is "statis," or more passive. The verbs in a noun-style sentence sink into the nouns and are further covered in layers of monotonous prepositional phrases. Verb style, however, is based on action and its verbs are central in the sentence.

In chapter two, Lanham talks about parataxis and hypotaxis, the two modes of how a writer connects the elements of his sentences. Parataxis is a style that tells its readers what/how to think via grammar (ie: "I came, I saw, I conquered." the style is direct and often pattern-like). Within parataxis, we see a common pattern of anaphora, a pattern of similar sentence openings. (ie: Hemingway's "I," "we," and "noun+was" openers). It creates a rhythm and heightens the intensity of its message. Hypotaxis, on the other hand, lets its readers know how thinks rank and what derives from what. It is wordier, thus less intense in style and a little less direct than parataxis. Nonetheless, it is very logical and reasoned because it follows assertion with supporting information. Paratactic comes a little more natural to write.

Paratactic style also encourages, as we see in Hemingway, an Asyndetic style--a style without connecting words (this also heightens intensity and repetition of words). Polysyndetic style, on the other hand, has a lot of connections (it is usually used in hypotactic sentences). It is fairly complex and informal.

Chapter three discusses the Periodic and Running styles. Periodic style is conscious of its organisation and often used by politicians (not Ike!) or writers trying to convey a specific message. If you write in the periodic style, you have control over your sentences, how they rank, and you have an idea where you are going specifically. Running style is more conversational and loose as a style. It is a style that literally runs without necessarily having a specific destination. The main difference between these two styles, however, is time reference. Running style is more present--things happen as they want to, not as the writer has constructed them. As Lanham says, "circumstances call the tune." Periodic style is the opposite--it has a specific beginning, middle, and end. It is careful, organised, and often patterned.

Finally, Chapter five (yes, we skipped chapter four) talks about my favorite subject: voiced and unvoiced styles. I understood this chapter best because voice is what I notice most in a piece, as opposed to its particular grammar styles. Lanham scolds the literary world and its readers for the practice of silent-reading. Yes, its faster, but it takes away from the tone of voice in a piece of literature. The more unspeakable, or toneless, the prose, the more we speed-read it. That's not good! Voiceless prose is "unworkable." It's boring, it's dull and it deserves to be sped over. But prose was not meant to be voiceless. Voice can stress central words and better convey the message of a piece. Voice and tone can also change the meaning/intent of writing or just cushion that intent, as Lanham demonstrated in President Eisenhower's letter to his general. Finally, Lanham and I agree that prose is meant to be performed. How can one perform prose if it has no voice? Voice is the personality a writer gives her prose and it is a vital ingredient in good writing.

Thank you and goodnight.

the banshee and the holy ghost

Four distinct types of sentences (all taken from Joyce's Grace):

Simple: "A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth."

"The gentlemen began to talk of the accident."

Compound: "The manager said something about a hospital and some of the bystanders gave advice."

"The three men left the bar and the crowd sifted through the doors into the laneway."

Complex: "The man, without answering, began to twirl the ends of his moustache." and "While the point was being debated a tall agile gentleman of fair complexion, wearing a long yellow ulster, came from the far end of the bar."

Compound-Complex: "Mr Kernan was hoisted on to the car and, while Mr Power was giving directions to the carman, he expressed his gratitude to the young man and regretted that they could not have a little drink together."

Grace is a story. Joyce doesn't try to bother us with complex syntactical styles, he just tells Kernan's story. This story is definitely written in verb-style--the sentences are based on action and contain plenty of verbs. Take a look at a few sentences from the opening paragraph of Grace: "He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen." And "His eyes were closed and he breathed with a grunting noise." The concentration of the sentence is all on the action.

Moreover, the style of this story is written in periodic parataxis, peppered with a few sentences that lean hypotactic. Joyce sews independent and dependent clauses together to make his longer sentences and then punctuates those with an a shorter, one clause sentence. Yet his parataxis is not painstakingly contrived or self-conscious like Hemingway's. Joyce simply lets the action and dialogue carry the weight of the story, not bothering us with syntax that may or not be allegorical. This allows for a straight reading of the story, for the story, with nothing looming in the background that we have to tackle later.

For example, in the following paragraph, all we are concerned with when reading is the action of the story. We just want to know what the hell happened to Mr Kernan and the bloody details of the present state of his mouth:

The other leaned over the wheel of the car and peered into Mr Kernana's mouth but he could not see. He struck a match and, sheltering it in the shell of his hands, peered again into the mouth which Mr Kernan opened obediently. The swaying movement of the car brought the match to and from the opened mouth. The lower teeth and gums were covered with clotted blood and a minute piece of the tongue seemed to have been bitten off. The match was blown out.

Joyce uses a lot of straightforward clauses to string the story along. The majority of these clauses are independent and the ones that are dependent are not some annoying parenthetical side note that dependent clauses often are. Joyce's voice in this passage (and in the story in general) is rather detached. Again, the main concern here is just telling the story, not sidetracking the reader with added the narrator's voice. But Joyce doesn't need to have a voice in this story--the action does all the talking. The verbs and adjectives Joyce picked to describe the examination of Mr Kernan's injury are vivid and tangible without trying to be. Look again at these first two sentences: "The other leaned over the wheel of the car and peered into Mr Kernana's mouth but he could not see. He struck a match and, sheltering it in the shell of his hands, peered again into the mouth which Mr Kernan opened obediently. " Not only are the prepositional phrases here simple, they are extremely telling and simply paint the story's image in the reader's mind.

Moreover, Joyce uses a repetition and a bit of alliteration, but he is not forward about it. This is a prose story, not a poem or prose that tries too hard. He repeats "mouth" and "peered" and alliterates "s" (see, struck, sheltering, shell, swaying). In the next two sentences he alliterates further with combined sounds of hard and soft of "b", "t", and "th" : "The swaying movement of the car brought the match to and from the opened mouth. The lower teeth and gums were covered with clotted blood and a minute piece of the tongue seemed to have been bitten off. The match was blown out." The simplicity of this style makes the story so powerful, and I appreciate Joyce for that.

Lo-lee-Ta.

Vladimir Nabokov makes art out of his words.

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

The alliteration alone in this beginning paragraph of Lolita is beautiful. "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." The "L's" slip off your tongue and the "T's" trip like skipping feet down steps to the "Lo. Lee. Ta". The alliteration sets continue into the second sentence, making the whole paragraph sound like a stanza from a poem. "My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-Ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth."

Like I said, the whole paragraph and several of those following this one are incredibly poetic in both rhythm and sound. Nabokov's poetic style automatically grabs my attention as a writer--and a poet, at that--and creates a an atmosphere of literary romance. These opening sections of Lolita, in their syntactical and poetic loveliness seem flawless as pieces of literature. Nabokov's romantic style here reminds me of the poet Marlowe and his "Passionate Shephearde to His Love" and its idealized sense of love and rhythm. Both writers have complete control over their words and use that control to create an airy, syllabic rhythm, dotted with great alliteration. They definitely create a soft mood of warm love and through this mood, Nabokov maintains the voice of a nostalgic lover throughout the excerpts.

Nabokov writes in a running style--there is no organization to this opening passage, necessarily--it is just him gushing over his love, his Lolita, and emphasizing the sounds of her name as they roll off his tongue.

Crashing Clinton

Bill Clinton's great oration comes from more than just his eloquent articulation, it stems from the way he--or whoever wrote his speeches--structures his sentences. Lanham says that the running style is closest to natural speech, but this speech is highly organized and patterned and mostly written in period style. Clinton may let his words flow and fall naturally, but there is always a climax with a concluding, driving sentence, allowing for period-style suspension and balance within his paragraphs.

Take a look at this paragraph from the speech. It is a prime example of a period--the architecture of the sentence is same, patterned with parallel clauses beginning with "when," and finally climaxes.

Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.

This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead—we have not made change our friend.

But lets break this paragraph down a little more. Notice the way Clinton pulls at the people's heartstrings to persuade them of his point: "when most people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all." His vocabulary was very carefully chosen, and specific words stand out to readers and listeners. Words like"cost," and "devestates families" and "great and small" appeal to the people and their needs. When he finally ends with "we have NOT made CHANGE our friend," readers and listeners cannot help but nod their heads in agreement because of the choice words he used to persuade them with.

Clinton utilizes parallel patterns quite well. Here is another prime pattern example: "Communications and commerce are global; investment is mobile; technology is almost magical; and ambition for a better life is now universal. We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth." The rhythm established here by the pattern sets the reader/listener up for a grabbing ending to sum it all up. Clinton delivers such an ending every time.

In this next paragraph, the sentences are shorter, more direct. Clinton circles around the definition of posterity, loosely stringing along the sentences in a running sort of way but finally cinches the end with an imperative sentence. Clinton uses a lot of repetition of words and creates another kind of pattern in this paragraph:

Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come—the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.

The great secret of Clinton's sentences is the pacing. He winds up the audience, clause after clause, and then finally lets go with a crashing Ciceronian period. It is that final crash that makes him so effective as a speaker.

A Silver Dish

"There were Woody’s two sisters as well, unmarried, in their fifties, very Christian, very straight, still living with Mama in an entirely Christian bungalow. Woody, who took full responsibility for them all, occasionally had to put one of the girls (they had become sick girls) in a mental institution. Nothing severe. The sisters were wonderful women, both of them gorgeous once, but neither of the poor things was playing with a full deck."

Saul Bellow has a syntactic habit with his sentences: they are symmetrical. Take a look at the very first sentence of this paragraph from A Silver Dish. Bellow begins the sentence with a longer phrase "There were Woody's two sisters as well" and then staccatos the middle of the sentence with smaller phrases and descriptions of the two sisters: "unmarried, in their fifties, very Christian, very straight." He then closes the sentence symmetrically with a longer phrase "still living with mama in an entirely Christian bungalow." This creates an instant rhythm to the sentence. The symmetry and rhythm, however, go further into the structure of the sentence. The staccato feel of the inner phrases comes from both the syllabic counts in the phrases (unmarried - 3, in their fifties - 4, very Christian - 4, very straight - 3), as well as the word and image repetition ("very Christian, very straight....Christian bungalow").

This symmetry and rhythm continues throughout this bit of paragraph above, again in the phrase and clause lengths within the sentences. Bellows strategically places sips of details in the gulp of the sentence. Woody's action in the second sentence is immediately interrupted by one of these side-notes ("Woody,who took full responsibility...,occassionally") and then is interrupted again with another side-note ("they had become sick girls"). The fragment "nothing severe" acting as a sentence is, in fact, another side note. The reader is side-tracked yet again in the fourth sentence as cuts off his thought for a moment about what wonderful women Woody's sisters are with "both of them gorgeous once" and then continues with what he was saying. Bellows does this quite frequently throughout the piece, creating a readable, information-packed, symmetrical rhythm for the reader to settle into.

Adding to this rhythm is Bellows polysyndetic style. His conjunctions are not always present in the text, nor are they overly pronounced like Hemingway, but they are thinly hidden between the phrases and clauses. Moreover, Bellow's sentences are full of action. His characters are always doing something. Take a look at the original text:

Woody would allow no undertaker’s assistant to dress him but came to the parlor and buttoned the stiff into the shirt himself, and the old man went down looking like Ben-Gurion in a simple wooden coffin, sure to rot fast. That was how Woody wanted it all. At the graveside, he had taken off and folded his jacket, rolled up his sleeves on thick freckled biceps, waved back the little tractor standing by, and shovelled the dirt himself. His big face, broad at the bottom, narrowed upward like a Dutch house. And, his small good lower teeth taking hold of the upper lip in his exertion, he performed the final duty of a son. He was very fit, so it must have been emotion, not the shovelling, that made him redden so. After the funeral, he went home with Halina and her son, a decent Polack like his mother, and talented, too—Mitosh played the organ, at hockey and basketball games in the Stadium, which took a smart man because it was a rabble-rousing kind of occupation—and they had some drinks and comforted the old girl. Halina was true blue, always one hundred per cent for Morris.

Now look at it broken down:

"Woody

would allow no undertaker’s assistant to dress him

but came to the parlor

and buttoned the stiff into the shirt himself,

and the old man went down looking like Ben-Gurion...

At the graveside, he

had taken off

and folded his jacket,

rolled up his sleeves on thick freckled biceps,

waved back the little tractor standing by,

and shoveled the dirt himself...

...And, his small good lower teeth

taking hold of the upper lip...

he

performed the final duty of a son...

After the funeral, he

went home with Halina...

[and]Mitosh

played the organ...

and they

had some drinks

and comforted the old girl."

This pattern of action is common in Bellow's style and creates a current in his story that keeps the reader engaged and going down river. Thus while Bellow's style is not entirely parataxis (there is no clear cut repetition like in Heminway or "I came, I saw, I conquered.") and incorporates some hypotaxis, the story escalates to such an intensity that parataxis is obviously present. "And there was his elderly, large, muscular son, still holding and pressing him when there was nothing anymore to press. You could never pin down that self-willed man. When he was ready to make his move, he made it—always on his own terms. And always, always, something up his sleeve. That was how he was. " The hidden paratactic rhythm, symmetry, and repetition heightens the potency of the story and ends it all with an immense crash.