Dissect this passage

[Mouse]

So I didn't know what to title the thread.

Anyways, TJ's idea. This is the very beginning of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and I love the description in the second paragraph and would really like to be able to write like this (the very first sentence doesn't do it for me, the passive 'was' makes me twitch). So how does he do it?

---

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.


From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.


In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.


As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

 

[allmywires]

I've always admired luxurious description (and description in general). Here you have to think - what makes you really feel this scene? Is it the heady flowers he's describing, which fill the mind's eye with bold colours and scents? Is it the exoticness of Persian saddle-bags jade-faced painters of Tokyo?

'Honey-sweet' is a double-edged simile, calling to mind both colour and scent; 'tremulous' is a wonderfully emotive word, bringing to mind a person on the brink of emotion, the edge of reason; 'sullen' bees 'shouldering' their way through unmown grass gives the image of a grumpy old man fighting his way through a field. Our first introduction to Lord Henry is when he's lying on a divan smoking countless cigarettes - epitomising his hedonism, laziness, uncouth grace - without having him utter a word. Basil's lingering smile and the mention of 'strange conjectures' already lets us know he probably has an undue interest in the subject of the painting.

It's the little things and little clues that make it magic.

(Or I'm just talking b*llocks - you decide! )

 

[Mouse]

I can just picture the setting so clearly and as I absolutely suck at description I want to make mine like this. I wouldn't know where to start. Even 'innumerable cigarettes' is brilliant.

Tis interesting what you say, AMW, cos I don't think I think like that but I totally get what you're saying.

 

[allmywires]

Tis interesting what you say, AMW, cos I don't think I think like that but I totally get what you're saying.

How do you think of it? It's interesting how people have different approaches. If you were to rewrite it, what would you do?

 

[Mouse]

How do you think of it?

I have no idea! I work on feelings a lot and find it hard to turn feelings into words. If that makes sense.

Also, if I was to rewrite it it'd be about a sentence long!

 

[allmywires]

I have no idea! I work on feelings a lot and find it hard to turn feelings into words. If that makes sense.

It does make sense, but for me feelings are more about how the description makes me feel, if that makes sense. I'm not good at feelings in writing! (Hence the usual emotionless-characters criticisms. If I could write a book just describing something I'd be in heaven).

I'm not being very helpful...

 

[Mouse]

It does make sense, but for me feelings are more about how the description makes me feel, if that makes sense. I'm not good at feelings in writing! (Hence the usual emotionless-characters criticisms. If I could write a book just describing something I'd be in heaven).

I'm not being very helpful...

No it's good!

I was just pondering how I'd re-write it and had a go at mentally re-writing that first sentence, then realised that I wouldn't be re-writing it, I'd just be re-wording it. So it'd still be OW's words but just in my style. If I was really re-writing it, I'd start with Harry himself. Or the painting even. I'd start there and probably slip in the vaguest descriptions of the room around it. So it's the feeling of the person, not the place.

 

[allmywires]

I think you should think about setting the scene more. (I do this alllll the time with weather). Nine times out of ten when I'm writing a scene, I start with where they are, what it looks like. For example, here's something I wrote a while ago (here's one I made earlier...):

It was a party, and as parties go a rather unremarkable one, sizzling out under the cloudless late autumn sky. There was an opalescent sheen to the horizon, a smear of unsightly pollution that scattered the dying light rays across the dull evening sky, pale peach and murky blue blending like tendrils of ink in the clear water. The boat, afloat and alight, illuminated its near surroundings, the festive lights twinkling on the crests of the gently rippled water. The clack of the surrounding sails and the sound of gentle conversation from within, bubbling like water on the boil, animated the silence that fell on the land like a blanket this side of the city. These were the fields of grand houses, swimming pools and private schools and private sand beaches, and this was the watery haven in which the privileged congregated on appropriately grand occasions, to drink and to talk realpolitik.

I could've just skipped straight to the dialogue that comes after this. But I really want the reader to feel what I'm feeling. You know when you're in a place - for me it's usually a summer evening, and you've had good food or good company and you just feel like, if I could freeze this moment and live in it forever, I would. That's the kind of feeling I want to get across with my description. So you really feel immersed in your world. I think that's what's the most important part of writing for me, the feeling of the place. Complete opposites!

You know, you and I should do a collab, Mouse - expending both of our virtues...

 

[Mouse]

You know, you and I should do a collab, Mouse - expending both of our virtues...

Really should. My people feels and your place feels... it would be most excellent.

 

[The Judge]

There's a rich sensuality in both the words used and the layering effect, multiple clauses and multiple objects all described. For me, the second para is too much, and I much prefer the first paragraph, as it's lighter -- but even then look at the number of adjectives:

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

He's also got three different nouns for smell -- all of them indicating something pleasant, instead of simply saying one could smell roses, lilac and thorn flowers we're getting repetition, driving home the idea while still differentiating between rich, heavy and delicate. So the very first sentence is an appeal to one sense, that of smell -- but doing so in a way that indicates someone can tell the difference -- this story will be about people who can judge finely in aesthetic matters.

In the next two paragraphs he goes onto the other senses, including, indirectly, taste with "honey-sweet" -- he is both describing what is there and conjuring the atmosphere. But note that London is seen as far distant, a mere background to the garden -- commerce and business is secondary, unimportant, compared to the life of the artist and aesthete.

There's a dense feel in the second paragraph caused by the number of adjectives and the piling up of the description. There's the deliberate evocation of the orient -- and the orient was then seen not just as exotic, but as sensual, cruel and decadent, and since Henry is inescapably part of this, immediately it makes us think of him as exactly the same. The fact he is lying, not sitting, is revealing, as are the "innumerable" cigarettes -- he's idling, while someone else is working.

There's balance in lines like "honey-sweet and honey-coloured" which appeals to our sense of symmetry, and in clauses like "pallid, jade-faced" there's again balance -- it's smooth in a way that "pale, jade-faced" wouldn't be (there's a hiatus after pale, which would bring us up short).

Look at the structure of that very long sentence (nearly 120 words). See how he uses the commas -- strictly one isn't needed between "laburnum" and "whose" but since we tend to draw breath when we see punctuation, without it we'd be gasping well before the end!

Notice how we see Henry first, then we see the picture, then Basil, and we only see Dorian himself through Basil's eyes -- we've swirled around the room, but Dorian is all but invisible to us -- and, of course, he isn't named. He is described in glowing terms, albeit generalised, because it is his beauty which is important, which is his identity.

Notice, too, that there are already hints of unpleasantness, "sudden disappearance" "strange conjectures" "imprison" "feared" -- plus we already know that Basil is thinking of the sitter in terms other than that of artist-model.


See what amw and I have done? We've picked it apart and pulled a few things up and wondered why he's used those words and not others, what they mean/suggest/imply. In your own writing, you then invert the process, decide what you want to suggest and choose words accordingly.

 

[Mouse]

Cor, that's good, TJ. I think I don't like the first sentence because it's so much description to describe smell (and I'm a person who loves describing smells!), but to me it's like it's saying the same thing in slightly different ways.

 

[Mouse]

Sorry to double post, I missed your edit.

See what amw and I have done? We've picked it apart and pulled a few things up and wondered why he's used those words and not others, what they mean/suggest/imply. In your own writing, you then invert the process, decide what you want to suggest and choose words accordingly.

I think my problem is that I wouldn't wonder why someone used the words they did. I'd just accept it. I'll have to do more wondering!

So, is that how you approach your writing, TJ? Choosing each word? I write whatever comes out of my head. I'm too impatient, maybe. Do you think OW sat and thought about the words he was using or did they just happen?

 

[allmywires]

So, is that how you approach your writing, TJ? Choosing each word? I write whatever comes out of my head. I'm too impatient, maybe. Do you think OW sat and thought about the words he was using or did they just happen?

Can't speak for TJ, but for me (and I know it sounds stupid) I genuinely just have a feel for what's right and what works. Sometimes I even use words whose meanings I don't know and they mostly turn out to be correct. (Except in the case of intransient/transient whose meanings I never fail to mix up).

 

[Mouse]

I can feel my brain expanding already. Right, tomorrow (or possibly Sunday) I'm going to try writing something descriptive and feelsy and with words and stuff. Now, I'm going to bed.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So, is that how you approach your writing, TJ? Choosing each word? I write whatever comes out of my head. I'm too impatient, maybe. Do you think OW sat and thought about the words he was using or did they just happen?

Yes, he was someone who thought very long for what he wanted to say. His childrens' literature is beautiful, really evocative. Having said that, whilst I see the mastery, I get a bit lost in his adult work.

I love writers who can take something and break it down to its simplest terms, make a single image crisp and wonderful. fitzgerald does it, Twain as well. In fact, it's one of the things I love about american literature, that there's a wonderful purity about it - E. Annie Proulx is good at it in the modern era.

Are we allowed to post up other excerpts to compare and contrast?

 

[The Judge]

When I'm reading for pleasure I also just accept the words -- unless they are the wrong words and I start getting antsy!! -- and I certainly don't sit and analyse like this. But I think it is important to do some analysing sometimes.

And yes, this is how I write, which is why I'm a very slow writer. Sometimes I can write a scene relatively quickly, but I'll go over it and over it, even in the midst of writing it, questioning every word, whether it's the best word, or there's a better one (I use a thesaurus a lot). I also look to see how it reacts with the words around it, because words can be like colours -- putting two clashing colours together like purple and orange, will achieve one effect, two complementary colours like blue and green will achieve another. eg there's one line in my SF1 that I'm pleased with

She stretched upwards, tentatively pressing her lips to his, her body to his, her hand reaching up to him, the trembling fingertips brushing his face gentle as a breath of air, shocking as a pulse storm.

The "gentle as a breath of air" is hackneyed (but the POV character isn't very original in his imagery, fortunately) but it's smooth and light, whereas "shocking as a pulse storm" (a kind of lightning storm) has a distinct thump to end the line with the two stressed monosyllables. A better example is from MacBeth:

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

You've got the Latin flourish of "multitudinous" and "incarnadine" and those heavy Anglo-Saxon pulse beats of the final line. The contrast between the two is important.


I don't know enough about OW to say for sure, but I should imagine he thought a lot about word choice. And of course we may pull out ideas which never occurred to him - ie he might not have sat down and consciously thought "I shan't mention Dorian's name until later" -- but that doesn't invalidate the ideas, because authors also work on an instinctive level.


EDIT:

Are we allowed to post up other excerpts to compare and contrast?

Don't see why not.

 

[Ursa major]

I tried to read that Wilde prose as a reader, but failed, albeit only in the sense that I couldn't help thinking of it as prose as well as the telling of a tale. (I did succeed in not analysing the use of words, but that's no great achievement for me.)

So on reading the text (and the second paragraph in particular), I had the impression that though this wasn't usually the kind of thing I like reading - I'd be thinking, too much description before getting to the point - Wilde had constructed it so well that I couldn't help but enjoy it.


To misuse a saying - the best is the enemy of the good - writing like this may not help me in my writing as much as I think it ought to because if I had Wilde's talent (or even a small part of it), I wouldn't have to worry about info dumps and head-hopping because the readers would take it all in their stride, entranced by my prose.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That being the case, one of the things I like about Mouse's writing is the conciseness, the clear telling of a story, and it strikes me that we don't always need heavy prose (much as I like it sometimes, and dip in from time to time), but that we can also do breathtaking description in a simpler fashion, but still exquitedly well crafted:



"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay," sid Gatsby. "You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock."

Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in waht he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that hte colossal significance of that light had vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had seperated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her; almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.



Firstly, he has a clear image, one that has been built up through the book of the green light. This contrasts against an earlier image of his blue grassed garden, which tells us of the decadence portrayed, that most things happen at night.

He then uses the coldness of the image of the light to reflect on the coldness of Daisy to him, and at this point realises it's all fake; his love for her (adoration, actually) and the linking of the lights. It's an easy to grasp analogy, but it's made very subtlely.

And to say his count had diminished by one; the reader understands, even if Nick(the narrator) doesn't voice it, that it's by more than one. And that one of them will never leave him. So, deceptively simple, but very, very effective.

 

[Kickerz]

I am sorry, but I don't understand why you enjoy this writing as much as you do. It is such a long sentence, that its clarity is lost after the third line of text. It reminds me of the overly fragrant women I pass on occasion in a grocery. The ones whom leave a perfume trail behind them in much the same way as Pepe Le Pew did in those Looney Tunes cartoons. It is so flowery, as to be unpleasant.

So I didn't know what to title the thread.

Anyways, TJ's idea. This is the very beginning of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and I love the description in the second paragraph and would really like to be able to write like this (the very first sentence doesn't do it for me, the passive 'was' makes me twitch). So how does he do it?

---

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.


From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.


In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.


As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

 

[The Judge]

Um... have to disagree with you there, Kickerz. I can understand not liking it, as that's a subjective matter (and for my taste, as I've said, it's too much) but there's no loss of clarity if it's read correctly -- read it out loud and use the punctuation to guide you as you read eg the "as was his custom" has to be read in parenthesis, as an almost aside, and there's a longer pause at the semi-colon (where most people nowadays would full stop and start a new sentence).

Anyway, Welcome to the Chrons!

springs, an interesting passage, but oddly I don't see it quite as you do. It never occurred to me the light is cold, because Gatsby himself says it "burns" all night -- as he has done for her. Nor did I see it as fake ie deliberately deceiving, but simply that he had invested it with a meaning and significance when, in fact, it wasn't anything special. It's also of note that he can't actually see her home (and the light?) here -- the mist is closing it off from him, and from her. The celestial imagery is important, too, and not just for the idea of unfathomable distances, of course.