Hi Nina! Such an interesting sentence. I love that about the phatic utterance, found also in George Saunders stories, as well as in Donald Barthelme and apparently Samuel Beckett? Going inside the voice!
Here’s my attempt:
It was, you know, the time of our lives, the only time there was, the vibrating chord we lived inside of, a soulgasmic heartbeat that lasted forever until the moment we got sledgehammered in the face by the lives we thought we’d left behind.
That's beautiful. The "you know" makes me feel like the narrator is speaking to me. You create an oral quality to this sentence and an intimacy. I love how the sentence pools and swirls around the time in their lives, that vibrating chord. The pooling makes it feel like the collective "we" loves it there and never wants to leave. Then you have that great word "sledgehammered."
Hi Nina! Such an interesting sentence. I love that about the phatic utterance, found also in George Saunders stories, as well as in Donald Barthelme and apparently Samuel Beckett? Going inside the voice!
Here’s my attempt:
It was, you know, the time of our lives, the only time there was, the vibrating chord we lived inside of, a soulgasmic heartbeat that lasted forever until the moment we got sledgehammered in the face by the lives we thought we’d left behind.
David,
That's beautiful. The "you know" makes me feel like the narrator is speaking to me. You create an oral quality to this sentence and an intimacy. I love how the sentence pools and swirls around the time in their lives, that vibrating chord. The pooling makes it feel like the collective "we" loves it there and never wants to leave. Then you have that great word "sledgehammered."
Thank you, Nina. I just gave voice to a character I only recently began writing about!
A brilliant, intimate voice. I hope you're seduced by it.
You are making me blush, but I love it!!