Simulating Disconnection
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
The past he remembers, Lola, his stateside time in the service, Japan, even Seoul before the invasion, seems to have occurred in an adjacent dimension not quite connected to him, and the mirage he lived as a kid in Philly is cut adrift.
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
It’s July 26, 1950. The Korean summer presses down like a wet blanket, and Corporal Robert Leavitt of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Division is far from home — deep in war-torn South Korea. Four relentless weeks of combat have blurred into one long, punishing day since North Korean forces stormed across the border.
One by one, Leavitt’s superiors have fallen. Now, unexpectedly, he wears the responsibility of a platoon commander. Every step forward is through choking heat and a landscape battered into ruin. Roads are choked, bridges splintered, and the country feels broken — yet the march continues.
In this sentence, Leavitt’s past is reduced to snapshots, quick bits that float in his mind as he marches to escape the North Korean invasion: “Lola, his stateside time in the service, Japan, even Seoul.” He can’t linger on the past, or he risks not protecting his platoon and the refugees whom he’s escorting away from the invasion. So the past is truncated, and asyndeton, the elimination of the conjunction at the end of the list, creates more speed.
It’s a mid-branching sentence, with the snapshots separating the subject, “the past [that] he remembers,” from the verb, “seems,” followed by an infinitive complement, “to have occurred.” The past is tucked in between, and this sentence is tucked away in a tense external event. It’s the perfect syntax and diction to mimic what’s happening on the ground and in his inner world.
The verb “seems” functions like a metaphor, comparing the past to “an adjacent dimension not quite connected to him.” It’s a fantastic way to transform the intangible, the past, into the tangible.
A second base clause follows the conjunction “and”: “the mirage [that] he lived as a kid in Philly is cut adrift.” A metaphor has two parts: the “target,” that which is being talked about, and the “source,” the concept or image to which the target is being compared. In Phillip’s sentence, she provides the “source,” which is “mirage.” The target is not explicitly stated in the second base clause, but there’s no need because the first base clause did that work. The metaphor extends with “cut adrift,” a past participle describing what has happened to the mirage.
By placing his childhood past in a separate second base clause, Phillips syntactically conveys the psychological distance of this time in his life. Another perfect syntactical choice that mimics Leavitt’s feeling toward his childhood.
Your Turn
Open with your subject. Since we’re practicing, you can use “past.”
List four things about the past. Can you use asyndeton, the elimination of conjunctions?
Add your verb. You can use “seems” or “appears” or a simile to transform the intangible into something tangible.
Use a conjunction and add a second base clause. For your subject, use the “source” of a metaphor. Make sure the “target” is explicit in the first base clause. Can you extend the metaphor, adding a description of the subject?
Try it!
How did it go?
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