When Caro got to her feet, when she brought hot water or closed a window, she moved with consequences as if existence were not trivial.
The Transit of Venus, by Shirley Hazzard
Try reading this sentence slowly. When Caro got to her feet—wait, why did she get to her feet? When she brought hot water or closed a window—hold on, why is she doing this? Who is the hot water for? Why is she closing the window? Where is this sentence going? How will it end?
There is a long build-up to find out. And then we see Caro moving with consequence, deliberation, and purpose as if life were filled with gravitas. She is not flighty or frivolous, she is not half-conscious or floating in fantasy. She’s someone who pays attention. Life has slammed into her, and she’s not able or willing to ignore the world which might deliver another devastating blow.
The Making
Let’s look at the bones.
This is a left-branching (also called periodic) sentence, and it gets its name because the modifying information (in this case, subordinate clauses) comes to the left of the base clause, “she moved.” We have to wait for the base clause and in that waiting, questions arise. Suspense swells. It’s a structure that puts great emphasis on the base clause because it builds to it and ends with it.
Hazzard also invokes anaphora, the repetition of the same word(s) at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Here she repeats “when”: “when Caro got to her feet”; “when she brought hot water or closed a window.”
She also uses balance (the pairing of twos) with “hot water” and “closed a window.” Balance sneaks in at the end with the base clause with “consequences” and “trivial.”
The pairing of “consequences” and “trivial” does something else, something I try to do in my writing. It’s an example of antithesis—a contrast or an opposite. By using antithesis, the contrasting qualities pop on the page. The way she walks becomes vivid, vibrant. Try the sentence without the “as if existence were not trivial” and suddenly the way she moves becomes moves vaguer, fuzzier.
Do you hear the music with the assonance: got/brought/hot/water/consequence/not?
Most writers know to invoke sensate details to usher the reader into the realm of experience, so the reader’s body travels through the story, too. But many forget the kinetic; how does a person or a thing move? And here is part of the stunning of this sentence: Hazzard rejects the usual refrain of more specificity and relies instead on abstraction, which opens the door wide for the reader to imagine how, exactly, does someone move with consequence?
Let me know how it goes.
Let me know what else you like about this sentence.
These are so much fun to play with. Thanks.
This sentence really stunned me with the way it expands as you read it. It started so plain - almost boring and basic using the word 'got' - then every clause adds something new and unexpected. I think that is what I liked most: the unexpected. It makes the person more precise without really discussing what she is doing or why. And it moves from very concrete images of motion into a mental space of abstracts supported by the concrete images. Very intriguing.