kristendom

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http://www.kristen540.blogspot.com

From Kristendom:

A comment relating both subject novels left by Michael Ng in my book review of Marciano Guerrero's The Poison Pill made clear to me that I'm not alone in thinking that there's some depth to Guerrero's novel. It's been many years since I read Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and I still think about it: beauty, platonic forms, the Apollonian and Dionysian duality, and the sea--and yes, death lurking nearby. As Tadzio is unattainable beauty to Aschenbach, so is Laura Standish to Ivon Bates. Yet, both fell in love, stayed in love, and never fell out of it creating the bitter-sweet scenes that filled their lives. And yes, death lurks nearby in both works. Thanks Michael for a most fitting remark.

What a joy it is to read fluid, breathless narrative. A master of American English syntax, Harold Coyle grabs you by the hand and won’t let go until you are done with the book. They Are Soldiers is a showcase for athletic prose. But how does he do it?

The secret is in his sentence openers. Seldom does one find the pattern subject, verb, complement. His openers are all prepositional phrases; that is plenty of subordinate clauses.

The grunts fighting the war in Iraq are in great numbers our friends, neighbors, and relatives: The Army Reserve and the National Guard. Coyle’s theme is that these citizens are soldiers—not to be looked down as a half-ragged militia.

Read Coyle’s book. Pray for our men and women in uniform. Let’s bring them back--unharmed and whole--to their friends, their moms, and pops, siblings, friends, their hoods, their towns, their states—bring them back to a grateful nation!</strong>

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It is so comforting to re-read a well written book. While the oeuvre of authors such as O’Hara, Hemingway, and Mailer are by now buried in the dunes of oblivion, Burroughs’ Tarzan remains vibrant and beloved. But, why? There may be many reasons, but I think the following two have something to do with it: (1) The presence of a prototype, and (2) Sentence beginnings.

In contrast to the three mentioned authors, Burroughs bequeathed for posterity a prototype—Tarzan. This intellectual feat together with a wise use of English syntax—in particular his sentence beginnings—make Tarzan a masterpiece. A classic.

If one applies this reasoning to lasting authors, one can see that there’s some validity to my thesis. Truman Capote not only created Holly Golightly, but he wrote with great respect for grammar and syntax. The same may be said of Jane Austen (Mr. Darcy), Nabokov (Lolita), Kafka (Gregor Samsa, Joseph K), Salinger (Holden), Fitzgerald (Gatsby), and so on.

Without a prototype and without due respect for the sound structures of the English language, the dunes will close in. Let’s have some fun. Who do you think will survive the dunes: Iris Murdoch, Joyce Carol Oates, Grisham, Tom Clancy, or Jack Schaefer?

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Many years before “character-driven” novels became fashionable, Ortega had already foreseen the shift from plot to character. And years before John Gardner spoke of the hermetic fictional dream, Ortega had also anticipated it:

The author must build around us a wall without chinks or loopholes through which we might catch, from within the novel, a glimpse of the outside world . . . In my judgment, no writer can be called a novelist unless he possesses the gift of forgetting, and thereby making us forget, the reality beyond the walls of his novels.

Today, I say to--serious, those aiming for literature--novelists: In my judgment no writer can be called a novelist unless he or she has absorbed the lessons taught in this humble—yet profoundly philosophical—book.

http://www.kristen540.blogspot.com

Sorry denizens I have not postings for your delectation as yet, but you can check my website. I've been blogging at Blogger.com for a few weeks now. You might find some of my rantings interesting. Click my Website Kristendom (though it is really a blog).