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Oct. 2nd, 2005 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaHmm, maybe I'll convert this LJ into one of those annoying political-rant blogs that no one ever wants to read, and abandon all the fun stuff about writing.
*sound of mass defriending*
Because these days, you wake up and you never know what country you're gonna find yourself in. So now this supposedly conservative, anti-government White House wants to get rid of the posse comitatus act, which means that the army will have war powers within the United States, while the National Guard will be, uh... sent to Iraq.
They could fix this confusion if they would just change the name of the National Guard back to Republican Guard, like Saddam used to call it. Really, why don't these guys ever listen to the pros?
* * * *
NPR just mentioned that the Maple Leaf Barin New Orleans is open again, yay. Wonder if the Maple Street Bookshop is ok. Its slogan, Fight the Stupids!, takes on new meaning these days.
* * * *
I have a novel to rec for those of you who like huge novels: The Book of Kings, by James Thackara. Here's an example of plain old good prose.
The observer is on a sailboat in Pescara harbor:
Behind him, Jim Penn lifted his face to the shady summits of sail as the breeze hollowed a current, tightening the wrinkled dacron. For several seconds the broad shaded decks were without movement as two jibs streamed up the forestays. Then Jim felt rather than heard an almost female sigh of life pass down the masts, creaking into the massive decks to the deep-sunk mystery of the keel, binding cloth, wood, and steel into a single motive. And standing in the midst of so much privilege, Jim looked back without shame at the crew lining the rail of the Yugoslav coaster and at the groups stopped along the docks to watch with modern envy and ancient wonder this universal sailing. Just then, as the Marta swung on the wind, hardening toward the harbor mouth, the white tower of sails yielded mildly, stiffened, and flooded with the full brilliance of the sun. A minute later they rounded the end stone. They were at sea.
Nice, huh? The graceful sentences, the spare use of punctuation, the deft touches of technical language and descriptive precision; the weaving of complex, shifting points-of-view from narrator to protagonist to faceless witnesses and back again, all observing closely (along with the reader) the precise moment when the ship takes off, leaves home, and ventures out. Above all, the controlled use of a surprising image ("the mystery of the keel") that captures in a few words a key idea, with just the hint of a larger organizing metaphor: that the thing which permits steering, direction, control, and balance is hidden, deep-sunk, and exactly where it is and how it works is a mystery.
Warning: this is not a sailing novel, but a big, sprawling World War II novel. The passage above is from near the beginning and marks the point when the old tale is about to begin: the ship ofstory has launched. With writing like that, one has some confidence that the author will be able to handle any number of characters and story lines, and will not be dwarfed by the scale of the historical moment he is writing about.
*sound of mass defriending*
Because these days, you wake up and you never know what country you're gonna find yourself in. So now this supposedly conservative, anti-government White House wants to get rid of the posse comitatus act, which means that the army will have war powers within the United States, while the National Guard will be, uh... sent to Iraq.
They could fix this confusion if they would just change the name of the National Guard back to Republican Guard, like Saddam used to call it. Really, why don't these guys ever listen to the pros?
* * * *
NPR just mentioned that the Maple Leaf Barin New Orleans is open again, yay. Wonder if the Maple Street Bookshop is ok. Its slogan, Fight the Stupids!, takes on new meaning these days.
* * * *
I have a novel to rec for those of you who like huge novels: The Book of Kings, by James Thackara. Here's an example of plain old good prose.
The observer is on a sailboat in Pescara harbor:
Behind him, Jim Penn lifted his face to the shady summits of sail as the breeze hollowed a current, tightening the wrinkled dacron. For several seconds the broad shaded decks were without movement as two jibs streamed up the forestays. Then Jim felt rather than heard an almost female sigh of life pass down the masts, creaking into the massive decks to the deep-sunk mystery of the keel, binding cloth, wood, and steel into a single motive. And standing in the midst of so much privilege, Jim looked back without shame at the crew lining the rail of the Yugoslav coaster and at the groups stopped along the docks to watch with modern envy and ancient wonder this universal sailing. Just then, as the Marta swung on the wind, hardening toward the harbor mouth, the white tower of sails yielded mildly, stiffened, and flooded with the full brilliance of the sun. A minute later they rounded the end stone. They were at sea.
Nice, huh? The graceful sentences, the spare use of punctuation, the deft touches of technical language and descriptive precision; the weaving of complex, shifting points-of-view from narrator to protagonist to faceless witnesses and back again, all observing closely (along with the reader) the precise moment when the ship takes off, leaves home, and ventures out. Above all, the controlled use of a surprising image ("the mystery of the keel") that captures in a few words a key idea, with just the hint of a larger organizing metaphor: that the thing which permits steering, direction, control, and balance is hidden, deep-sunk, and exactly where it is and how it works is a mystery.
Warning: this is not a sailing novel, but a big, sprawling World War II novel. The passage above is from near the beginning and marks the point when the old tale is about to begin: the ship ofstory has launched. With writing like that, one has some confidence that the author will be able to handle any number of characters and story lines, and will not be dwarfed by the scale of the historical moment he is writing about.
