Growing up he recalls, seeds bursting, school, his pride at climbing up to the glacier, even mom before she was hospitalized, all revealed in faded colours and mute textures not quite palpable, and the comfort he sought from petting the nanny goat slowly ablating.
Great! The compression of the past is powerful--a big sweep of time and the experiences that pop up and are remembered, like snapshots or tips of a mountain in fog. The precision is fantastic. I loved ending with the nanny goat slowly ablating.
A tough test this week and I've gone a little off-piste. Still, as always. it's rewarding trying...
At 'lights out' she attempts to focus–the kids, the house with the creaky floorboards, the warm smell of cooking–but it is blurred, only clear when seen as another's existence, another's food, another's home, another's love.
I like how you juxtapose the concrete images with their perception, and her way to bring them back into focus; the anaphora at the end adds to realize her feeling state .
So good! She's so immersed in it, she can only see the whole of it if she removes herself and occupies another's existence. With the list, beautifully rhythmic and emotional because of the anaphora, you're in the realm of four or more, which also makes it more emotional. Powerful!
This exercise is helping me write a paragraph I've been struggling with for days. This sentence still needs revision, but here it is in the form of an early draft:
How could the past he remembered, Alger, the times he had feasted at the high table, even the Assembly he had attended before Torwald’s murder, have happened in a another, orderly world, a world from which he was now cut loose and all he had grown up believing seemed to have been but a delusion, beyond his grasp?
The turn at the end into a question really works! As if the bafflement intensifies as the character reflects on all that has happened. It's also a great way to summarize for the reader all that's happened. The image of "cut loose" is critical--the ground he stood on for so long is gone.
Writing this sentence helped me understand and to emphasize this point in the character's rehashing of the memories of his past, and to see how it becomes a pivot point,from which all his previous expectations are shown to no longer matter.
I wonder if the order of the four memories listed here contributes to the sense of disconnection. Normally I´d expect that the list to build in length, with the tiniest noun phrases first and the longest one last. Here we get one word memories in spots 1 and 3, interweaved with longer phrases. To me, this order feels random and therefore disconnected.
The past I remember, mum’s devilled eggs on New Year’s Eve, my son at three dancing with his mother to the Wiggles on the tele, that full moon over the Dolomites, Corso Pietro Vannucci, flows through me like the tide, and the green sea turtle paddling past me as I floated out the back of North Steyne waiting for the next set to appear.
The college he remembers, playing pool with Andrew, getting lost in the stacks of Burling Library, Quad dinners, falling in love at last with Jessica, lingers in his mind like decades of transformation rather than the four years it was, and the dreams he had then extended nowhere near as far as he has traveled now.
Growing up he recalls, seeds bursting, school, his pride at climbing up to the glacier, even mom before she was hospitalized, all revealed in faded colours and mute textures not quite palpable, and the comfort he sought from petting the nanny goat slowly ablating.
Love the goat. Perhaps the GOAT goat!
Great! The compression of the past is powerful--a big sweep of time and the experiences that pop up and are remembered, like snapshots or tips of a mountain in fog. The precision is fantastic. I loved ending with the nanny goat slowly ablating.
A tough test this week and I've gone a little off-piste. Still, as always. it's rewarding trying...
At 'lights out' she attempts to focus–the kids, the house with the creaky floorboards, the warm smell of cooking–but it is blurred, only clear when seen as another's existence, another's food, another's home, another's love.
I like how you juxtapose the concrete images with their perception, and her way to bring them back into focus; the anaphora at the end adds to realize her feeling state .
Thanks, Astrid. Encouraging comments.
So good! She's so immersed in it, she can only see the whole of it if she removes herself and occupies another's existence. With the list, beautifully rhythmic and emotional because of the anaphora, you're in the realm of four or more, which also makes it more emotional. Powerful!
This exercise is helping me write a paragraph I've been struggling with for days. This sentence still needs revision, but here it is in the form of an early draft:
How could the past he remembered, Alger, the times he had feasted at the high table, even the Assembly he had attended before Torwald’s murder, have happened in a another, orderly world, a world from which he was now cut loose and all he had grown up believing seemed to have been but a delusion, beyond his grasp?
The turn at the end into a question really works! As if the bafflement intensifies as the character reflects on all that has happened. It's also a great way to summarize for the reader all that's happened. The image of "cut loose" is critical--the ground he stood on for so long is gone.
Writing this sentence helped me understand and to emphasize this point in the character's rehashing of the memories of his past, and to see how it becomes a pivot point,from which all his previous expectations are shown to no longer matter.
I wonder if the order of the four memories listed here contributes to the sense of disconnection. Normally I´d expect that the list to build in length, with the tiniest noun phrases first and the longest one last. Here we get one word memories in spots 1 and 3, interweaved with longer phrases. To me, this order feels random and therefore disconnected.
That’s such a good close reading! I think you’re right it definitely adds a jagged feeling.
I'm looking forward to joining you for the session today, Nina.
I’m so glad!
For Seb, 21 today
The past I remember, mum’s devilled eggs on New Year’s Eve, my son at three dancing with his mother to the Wiggles on the tele, that full moon over the Dolomites, Corso Pietro Vannucci, flows through me like the tide, and the green sea turtle paddling past me as I floated out the back of North Steyne waiting for the next set to appear.
The college he remembers, playing pool with Andrew, getting lost in the stacks of Burling Library, Quad dinners, falling in love at last with Jessica, lingers in his mind like decades of transformation rather than the four years it was, and the dreams he had then extended nowhere near as far as he has traveled now.