And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.”
– Paul Harding, Tinkers
What a beautiful sentence! Before we dissect it and look at the inner workings, I want to let it rearrange our inner world. Because that’s the true intention of a writer who invokes style techniques: the desire to transfer the writer’s private experience to the reader, with the hope that the sentence reorganizes the reader’s inner experience.
I feel so much rhythm in Harding’s sentence. The other night, I attended an online talk by Julia Otsuka, author of The Swimmers, who said something that resonated: “Rhythm is the secret underground grid that draws the reader into the book.” Toni Morrison said something similar: rhythm is the deep structure of fiction. Harding must know the same thing.
In his sentence, he opens with “And” which makes the sentence feel like a continuation of the previous sentence and creates an oral quality, mimicking how many people speak, connecting one sentence to the other with a rush of excitement or the desire to keep the listener’s attention.
Harding invokes personification in the opening clause with “the ax bites into the wood,” which assigns human qualities to the inanimate object. Now we come to the base clause, which is in the form of an imperative. An imperative gives advice, instructions, or expresses a command or request. While it looks like there’s no subject, the subject is an implied “you”-- (You) be comforted.
Here's where the sentence begins to feel rhythmic to me. To answer the question, be comforted in what? Harding unfurls a long direct object, which begins with “in the fact that” which leads to parallelism and balance:
The (article) ache (noun) in (preposition) your (possessive adjective) heart (noun)
The (article) confusion (noun) in (preposition) your (possessive adjective) soul (noun)
And then the rhythm soars with anadiplosis-- the last word or phrase of a line or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next. And anaphora, the first word(s) is repeated at the beginning of a the next phrase or clause or sentence.
1) That you are still alive
2) still human
3) and still open to the beauty of the world
I love this next part, which brings the sentence that is rhythmically soaring at great heights back down to the ground: “even though you have done nothing to deserve it.” The subordinate clause is stripped of rhythmic techniques. Gone are parallelism, anaphora, and anadiplosis, and in its place, the content is matched with hard-hitting plosives: done, deserve, and it.
The Making:
Start your sentence with “And” and add a subordinate clause that includes personification, as Harding does with “as the ax bites into the wood.”
Now write an imperative, with an implied you as the subject. Make sure to use a verb that needs a direct object.
For your direct object, use parallelism to add more rhythm. Use anadiplosis and anaphora and write three phrases or clauses.
End with a subordinate clause that does not include any rhythmic techniques.
Try it! Maybe it will lead to another sentence and another.
What else do you see in this sentence?
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"with the hope that the sentence reorganizes the reader’s inner experience." -- such a perfect distillation of why working at style, so out of fashion, is central to a transformative experience, an effect mere "information" can never deliver.
Love this sentence too, especially the rhythmic aspect. The only thing "that" didn't work for me was the "that" in the middle. I've tried to eliminate "thats" as much as possible, except where necessary. I think this already gorgeous sentence would be "that" much better without it. 😁