And so, lying there in the stuffy haze of relative sobriety—itself a kind of high—amidst the underwear and cans and dried piss and empty orange pill bottles and half-read books held open against the hardwood, breaking their spines to face away—Cyrus had a decision to make.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
So many incandescent sentences in this novel that I’m sure this won’t be the only one presented here. They beg to be slipped into their skins and marvel at their inner workings. When a poet marries language to a story, the language is often an unexpected spark of freshness.
Akbar uses a left-branching sentence—the modifiers coming first—to create suspense by delaying the base clause, “Cyrus has the decision to make.” The rumbling subtext is that the decision is difficult, with Cyrus having to wade through the detritus of his life, which is depicted with the specific details, “amidst the underwear and cans…”
Each item in this list is emphasized by his use of polysyndeton, the overuse of conjunctions. Polysyndeton also creates a rhythm of iamb, with a soft stress followed by a heavier stress (heavy stress in bold) and cans and dried piss and empty orange pill bottles and half-read books. It also helps set up a cluster of heavier stresses (spondee).
He creates different rhythms by varying the length of the items in his list:
1. The underwear
2. Cans
3. Dried piss
4. Empty orange pill bottles
5. Half-read books held open against the hardwood, breaking their spines to face away
The list begins with shorter words and builds to the fifth item. So, there is a build within the larger structure of the build inherent with the use of a left-branching sentence—a reminder to include variability in a list and create an arc. Akbar draws the reader’s attention to the half-read books through alliteration “half/held/hardwood” and then the little hint of personification, in which the books are breaking their spines to face away. As if the books possess agency.
One more thing about a list: when it includes more than three things, the subtext is that it could go on and on. When we move into the four-or-more series, we are in the realm of the irrational, the emotional, the inexplicable, writes Winston Weathers in his essay, “The Rhetoric of the Series.” But really, I don’t need him to tell me that; I can feel it. Three (series) would feel contained and under control. This list feels out of control.
The parenthetical, “itself a kind of high,” feels like it’s language coming from Cyrus. A moment of Cyrus' diction seeps into the story and adds to the development of his character. The adjectives, too, “stuffy haze,” and “relative sobriety,” (an example of balance or the pairing of two things) feel like they might be Cyrus’ diction.
Do you hear all the music?
There is a steady emphasis on the long “I” sound: lying/high/kind/dried/spines/Cyrus
Other sounds are amplified through repetition:
Stuffy/sobriety; piss/pill; cans/half
Books/breaking; face/away/breaking/make
Sobriety/open
Your Turn
Write a left-branching sentence. Include balance and a parenthetical, which is set off by em dashes.
Now, write a list of five things and use polysyndeton. Vary the length, building to the longest, the final one. The final one draws the reader’s attention because it is more expansive. Can you add alliteration? Personification?
End with your base clause.
Can you add alliteration and assonance?
How did it go?
What else to you see?
About Me:
I’ve taught “Style in Fiction,” “Word for Word” and “Cultivating Your Prose” at the University of San Francisco and Stanford Continuing Studies since 2007.
Please visit my website to find all my books: ninaschuyler.com, including my novel Afterword, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.
Preorder My Award-Winning Short Story Collection:
I’m so happy that my short story collection, In This Ravishing World, will be published in July 2024. The collection won the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections and The Prism Prize for Climate Literature.
Here’s what the Judge for The Prism Prize for Climate Literature said about the collection:
“Three pages into reading this fascinating book, I knew it was the clear winner of the third annual Prism Prize for Climate Literature that I sponsor through Homebound Publications. Not only does it cover every facet of the climate issue and the ongoing efforts at dealing with or denying/undermining what needs to be done, Nature’s presence embraces the entire narrative and lends a sense of enchantment. Rivetted, I could barely put it down for the three days it took to read the compelling stories of a diverse cast of characters: there is someone in these pages for every reader to relate to.”—Gail Collins-Ranadive, author of Dinosaur Dreaming, Our Climate Moment.
I’d really appreciate it if you preorder the book. Here’s the link:
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What I'm receiving from this exercise is the difference between the story that is being told and how the story is told. My novels, most recently CRAY CRAY NAYSHUN, tell stories. I focus on the actions of the characters and—show don't tell—their motivations. A novel composed of stunning sentences would be a different beast, intriguing to be sure. Laboring in obscurity I am suddenly feeling like a hermit who's been discovered in his redwood encircled shack. Dreaming of being discovered he feels overwhelmed by being seen.
Murder or suicide or dismemberment or perhaps poison or slyly even the quiet extermination of electrocution, how would Wilson dispose of his nemesis?