Inspiring lines

[Michael01]

Well, I was doing research for a presentation on "polysyndeton" for my Literary Essay class. Since I have to include examples from literature, I of course wanted to find some in my favorite stories. Turned out to be a bit difficult to flip through pages looking for appropriate examples. I went with three I found online (all three of them fantasy [if you count Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car as fantasy, and I do]...imagine that).

Then, on a whim, I decided to pull my copy of Dragon Tears by Dean Koontz off the shelf. Now I don't really count this as one of my top faves, not even among Koontz's books (those are Midnight and Fear Nothing), but it is one that I enjoyed very much. I opened it once randomly and did not catch anything. The second time I did and was very pleased, because it's from the pov of the character that really made this story for me:

"They keep stooping down to pet him and scratch behind his ears and tell him he’s a good dog, good, and they say other nice things about him that he can’t really understand. This is the best. It is so good to be petted and scratched and liked by people who will, he is pretty sure, not set his fur on fire, and by people who do not have any cat smell on them, none."

 

[Esfires]

Well, I was doing research for a presentation on "polysyndeton" for my Literary Essay class. Since I have to include examples from literature, I of course wanted to find some in my favorite stories. Turned out to be a bit difficult to flip through pages looking for appropriate examples. I went with three I found online (all three of them fantasy [if you count Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car as fantasy, and I do]...imagine that).

Then, on a whim, I decided to pull my copy of Dragon Tears by Dean Koontz off the shelf. Now I don't really count this as one of my top faves, not even among Koontz's books (those are Midnight and Fear Nothing), but it one that I enjoyed very much. I opened it once randomly and did not catch anything. The second time I did, and was very pleased, because it from the pov of the character that relly made this story for me:

"They keep stooping down to pet him and scratch behind his ears and tell him he’s a good dog, good, and they say other nice things about him that he can’t really understand. This is the best. It is so good to be petted and scratched and liked by people who will, he is pretty sure, not set his fur on fire, and by people who do not have any cat smell on them, none."

Koontz has a lot of flaws, but nobody writes dogs quite like he does. If I remember right, he actually wrote a whole book about the first dog he and his wife ever got. Watchers is one of his best books, and in it he brings a dog to life like nobody else has ever done.

 

[Michael01]

Koontz has a lot of flaws, but nobody writes dogs quite like he does. If I remember right, he actually wrote a whole book about the first dog he and his wife ever got. Watchers is one of his best books, and in it he brings a dog to life like nobody else has ever done.

Yes, I was really impressed with it, too. Haven't read Watchers yet (will have to now), but I've read quite a few of his books. Never thought any were bad, although I thought some were better than others, and a couple of them very good.

 

[Esfires]

Watchers is often called one of his best, if not the best.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm resurrecting this thread for something I came across last night in The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy:

She looked towards the western sky, which was now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were being cast.

I read that over and over again. He not only caught the appearance of a certain type of sunset, but made it almost biblical.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm resurrecting this thread for something I came across last night in The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy:



I read that over and over again. He not only caught the appearance of a certain type of sunset, but made it almost biblical.

I’m glad you did! I have never seen this thread before, and enjoyed reading about the book quotes. Altho please let’s keep the film and game ones in a separate thread. I don’t know why I get so grumpy when films and literature are mixed.( I’d want to add some poetry lines but that kind of defeats the object )

I’d have posted the opening to Shirley Jackson’s THHH and the first pages of DuMaurier’s Rebecca have a shrine in my mind.

But they’re pretty long to qualify as lines.

More please!

 

[Ursa major]

She looked towards the western sky, which was now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were being cast.

I also love the imagery of the line -- I'm seeing (well, feeling) a double comparison, the first, already enormous, between the observer (and me) and the sky, and that between both of them and that "vast foundry" -- but I think it would flow better without the "which was":

She looked towards the western sky, now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were being cast.

This is rather odd of me, because I'd probably write that "which was" myself. (Of course, and sadly, I wouldn't have written the rest of the sentence.) Whether or not Hardy was worried that someone might think (if only for the briefest fraction of a second) that it was the observer who was aglow, I couldn't say.

 

[HareBrain]

Whether or not Hardy was worried that someone might think (if only for the briefest fraction of a second) that it was the observer who was aglow, I couldn't say.

Given that he was writing in the 1880s, he might have feared that even the slightest possibility of seeming to suggest that a woman was "aglow" to that extent would get him arrested for gross indecency.

 

[Ursa major]

I suppose that might be avoided by slightly changing it again:

She looked towards a western sky now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were being cast.

By the way, I'm working under the protection of the ECC (the "Everyone's a Critic" Convention).