Dissect this passage

[Mouse]

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.

Yeah, I was going to post a segment from The Nightingale and the Rose, but thought it was almost too simple. I mean, I can see how he's achieved what he wanted in that one.

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

Yes please.

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.

I'm an extremely slow writer but I don't analyse words like that. God knows why it takes me so long!

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.

This is it, I hate too much description. I'm impatient, I want to get on with the story, but that description is so well done that I just want to sit and look at it.

That being the case, one of the things I like about Mouse's writing is the conciseness, the clear telling of a story...

That's a nice way of saying 'simple.' (But thanks!)

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.

I'm with TJ. There's no loss of clarity. If I can understand it then it must be pretty clear. And I'm not a fan of flowery writing at all but here it came across as interesting description rather than flowery writing, which is why I like it.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That's a nice way of saying 'simple.' (But thanks!)


Hmmm, because of the thanks, I'll make it a small one:

SLAP!

It's a way of saying you write in the way I like to read, a good story driven along by interesting characters and bang-on dialogue. With clear motivations. And nice descriptions, crisp and concise and not flowery... I could go on, but you'll be hiding under your duvet in embarassment. But not simple, or if it is simple, only because your writing is accomplished enough to make reading it easy. And that is a skill that many, many writers could take a leaf of and run with.

 

[HareBrain]

Mouse, I prefer your normal level of description to Wilde's second paragraph. It's pretty, but to me it's hot air, almost nonsensical in parts, and it belongs very much to the Decadent movement. It would only make sense to write like that if you belonged to that movement, which I can't see that you do. It fits Wilde's story, since from what I know of it, Dorian Gray is the ultimate Decadent novel, but I can't think it would fit much else.

If you want to practise description, I'd start as an exercise by describing things you have a particular interest in -- something you'd want to paint if you were a painter. Your dog, say. It's much easier to fully describe things we're interested in enough to look closely at.

 

[Mouse]

That's a nice way of saying 'simple.' (But thanks!)


Hmmm, because of the thanks, I'll make it a small one:

SLAP!

It's a way of saying you write in the way I like to read, a good story driven along by interesting characters and bang-on dialogue. With clear motivations. And nice descriptions, crisp and concise and not flowery... I could go on, but you'll be hiding under your duvet in embarassment. But not simple, or if it is simple, only because your writing is accomplished enough to make reading it easy. And that is a skill that many, many writers could take a leaf of and run with.

Someone put up another passage quick!

 

[allmywires]

I too am among Mouse's fanclub, I love the way you write, but I love the way you write your characters most of all. They all just come across so real and human. I've said it time and again but I love description, so no complaints from me if you start making TBM a little more flowery.

But I will say this - thanks to this thread/discussion in GWD, I've realised that I have to stop writing how I think I should be writing, and write what feels natural to me. Please don't force yourself to do something that's hard/doesn't feel write because it'll only bring you down. I just can't do snappy action. It's just not my thing, and if it makes me a flawed writer, OK, that's fine. Likewise, you shouldn't feel you need to be descriptive if you don't need it - both you and springs have a wonderful way of writing that pulls the reader along without the many pages of description I would have written.

So thank you Mouse for giving me a little pep talk in the most indirect way possible!

 

[Mouse]

I too am among Mouse's fanclub, I love the way you write, but I love the way you write your characters most of all. They all just come across so real and human. I've said it time and again but I love description, so no complaints from me if you start making TBM a little more flowery.

But I will say this - thanks to this thread/discussion in GWD, I've realised that I have to stop writing how I think I should be writing, and write what feels natural to me. Please don't force yourself to do something that's hard/doesn't feel write because it'll only bring you down. I just can't do snappy action. It's just not my thing, and if it makes me a flawed writer, OK, that's fine. Likewise, you shouldn't feel you need to be descriptive if you don't need it - both you and springs have a wonderful way of writing that pulls the reader along without the many pages of description I would have written.

So thank you Mouse for giving me a little pep talk in the most indirect way possible!

Um, you're welcome. (Seriously though, can we stop complimenting me now, it's weirding me out.)

Mouse, I prefer your normal level of description to Wilde's second paragraph. It's pretty, but to me it's hot air, almost nonsensical in parts, and it belongs very much to the Decadent movement. It would only make sense to write like that if you belonged to that movement, which I can't see that you do. It fits Wilde's story, since from what I know of it, Dorian Gray is the ultimate Decadent novel, but I can't think it would fit much else.

It's more that I would like to be able to write like that, not that I would write like that.

If you want to practise description, I'd start as an exercise by describing things you have a particular interest in -- something you'd want to paint if you were a painter. Your dog, say. It's much easier to fully describe things we're interested in enough to look closely at.

I would struggle to describe the dog even. He's black and hairy and looks like Hairy Maclary.

Anyways, I'm interested in the use of particular words and stuff too so, yeah, anybody else has a paragraph or two we could go over then that'd be cool.

 

[allmywires]

Um, you're welcome. (Seriously though, can we stop complimenting me now, it's weirding me out.)

I'll only be rude from now on

I'm trying to think of another extract to compare, but that would involve me going upstairs to find my books. I'll be back this afternoon after I've done some work.

 

[HareBrain]

Here's a descriptive passage that always stuck in my mind, from Tolkien's The Two Towers:

Here nothing lived, not even the leperous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light.

Why this works, I think, is in the combination of techniques Tolkien uses. The "High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained" is a statement of fact, if you like, which roots it in reality, but he has also linked the landscape to human (and the reader's) experience, such as "sickly", "gasping" and the light being "reluctant". Best of all is the metaphor of the mountains "vomiting the filth of their entrails", evoking two of the less pleasant aspects of the body, and which to my mind would have been over-the-top if he had then not brought in the hard, factual description to balance and root it. (Having done that, he could probably have lost the "obscene graveyard"; he didn't need to do any more at this point.)

 

[Mouse]

I like that, HB. It's like the landscape has been humanised. 'Gasping' and 'choked'. Clever.

 

[HareBrain]

Easy to overdo, though. That's why it needs the "factual" description too.

 

[HareBrain]

Sorry for double-posting; here's another Tolkien I've always loved, but never asked myself why before:

Away eastward the sun was rising red out of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the autumn trees seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea. A little below him to the left the road ran steeply into a hollow and then disappeared.

You have an evocative first line, then a metaphor in the second (humanising the landscape again, this time with a comparison to sailing). These both conjure images that are vague and airy-fairy ("mists", "seemed", "rootless", "shadowy"). The third line, which to me is what makes it work so well, brings us back to earth and reality. I think it's the words "road", "steep" and "hollow" that do this, perhaps along with the otherwise pointless detail "to the left". These are earthy, solid and definite. Again, it's combination and contrast.

 

[The Judge]

In that passage there's also a certain archaism of word order -- "that lay thick on the world" brings the Bible to my mind. (Strangely, copying it just then, I originally wrote "thick upon the world" which is more archaic yet!) And the "Touched with gold" is itself imagery, as if some god-like figure has dabbed heavenly paint onto the trees.


OK, Mouse. Now we've shown you -- pick another passage you like and try and analyse it!

 

[Kickerz]

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.

Thanks for the welcome!

I am genuinely curious though. Why do you enjoy this paragraph as much as you do? I read the paragraph again, and I must admit that it creates a scene. It does force the reader to really focus on what he is reading. Hard to read this while doing something else at the same time! I still get the feeling that the description is written to navigate through the walls of punctuation, instead of using them for boundary and simplicity. Does the long flowing sentence really outshine a more concise and segmented style?

 

[Mouse]

I can't think of any more, TJ! Can I pick something still copyrighted?

 

[allmywires]

I am genuinely curious though. Why do you enjoy this paragraph as much as you do? I read the paragraph again, and I must admit that it creates a scene. It does force the reader to really focus on what he is reading. Hard to read this while doing something else at the same time! I still get the feeling that the description is written to navigate through the walls of punctuation, instead of using them for boundary and simplicity. Does the long flowing sentence really outshine a more concise and segmented style?

I enjoy it because all I want to do when I'm reading a book is to feel like I'm there, immerse myself in it. You have to concentrate on it because it's a somewhat outdated style of writing - Victorians weren't known for their snappiness, after all - and it's wallowing in its own opulence, like Lord Henry. I think a long and flowing sentence is a particular taste - lots of people don't like this style, and Wilde's in particular. But the whole beauty of Dorian Grey would be lost if the writing wasn't like that, if you understand me. The writing is what makes the book interesting to me.

And welcome, Kickerz

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks for the welcome!

I am genuinely curious though. Why do you enjoy this paragraph as much as you do? I read the paragraph again, and I must admit that it creates a scene. It does force the reader to really focus on what he is reading. Hard to read this while doing something else at the same time! I still get the feeling that the description is written to navigate through the walls of punctuation, instead of using them for boundary and simplicity. Does the long flowing sentence really outshine a more concise and segmented style?

I'm with you. I find it too dense, but I asked someone who I know is a big Oscar Wilde fan. They are a more patient reader than me, and enjoys taking a moment before moving on, that it moves at a pace to let him do that.

I read it and get overwhelmed and therefore switch off, it's too much. So, I think it's as much about our individual reading style as it is the writing, maybe.

I think, too, as TJ says, this is evocative of an era, and that I do get.

@TJ, I love that the passage (the Gatsby one)says something different to each of us. It's one of the reasons I like Fitzgerald, he gives direction, but not so much we can't mould the meaning of the tale to ourselves. I think he does it less well in Tender is the night, because he's too close to the subject, but that book probably has the stronger description.

 

[allmywires]

OK Mouse, I have one for you. What does this paragraph say to you? (It's a bit more character-y than the other bits of description). Also not sure about this copyright situation but I'll reference it at the end to be safe.

Dora turned her attention to the women and got as far as Catherine. Catherine was sitting at the side near the front, easy to survey. She wore a neat grey Sunday frock, rather smart it occurred to Dora. The sort of frock that might be worn with an expensive hat at a luncheon party. Only here, somehow, it just looked simple. She had combed her hair, which made a spectacular difference to her appearance. The bun was worn low, firmly knotted, and the hair, pulled smoothly behind the ears, was glossy, undulating, refusing to look demure. Catherine was looking down and drooping her eyelids in a customary pose which seemed at times modest and at times secretive. Dora could see the bulge of the brow, the high arch of the cheek, the gentle yet somehow strong upward tilt of the nose. The natural pallor of the skin looked today more ivory than sallow. Dora looked at her with an admiration and a pleasure which were not untempered by the knowledge that this splendid piece was so soon to be withdrawn definitively from circulation.

- Murdoch, I. 1958 The Bell Vintage Classics

 

[Mouse]

I don't know but I don't like it much! She must be staring at Catherine way too much.

Um, ok. What sort of things am I supposed to pick out?

 

[allmywires]

What sort of things am I supposed to pick out?

What does it tell you about the characters of Dora and Catherine? The words the author uses, the sentence structure - short, sharp sentences or long flowing ones? In turn, what does that say about the mood of the scene?

 

[Mouse]

Right, right.

Well, Dora's clearly far too nosey and starey. And is she attracted to Catherine? (That's a genuine question!)

Catherine... This bit says most about her, I think: The bun was worn low, firmly knotted, and the hair, pulled smoothly behind the ears, was glossy, undulating, refusing to look demure.

So, she's no-nonsense (the bun being knotted 'firmly'), confident and uh... a bit vain? The word 'glossy' makes me think that. (I'm not entirely sure what 'undulating' means, I'm guessing wavy).

The mood would be chilled? Cos she's taking her time checking out the other woman and isn't doing anything else.