Quotes, first lines

[tarigwaemir]

Durant Avenue on the Feast of St. Giles

Spent Labor Day weekend relaxing. Steve and I went on a picnic in the park--Vietnamese baguette with chèvre, avocado, and pears stewed in balsamic vinegar and caramel--and took a nap on the grass. We had dinner with jaebi_lit, who took us to a very nice Indonesian restaurant. We ordered a roti dessert with condensed milk, peanuts and cheese; it was rich and delicious. Cat also lent me Victory of Eagles so I can finally catch up on the Temeraire series. Hurrah!

Speaking of reading, some quotes from books I've been reading:

The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Borromini, and the Rivalry That Transformed Rome, by Jake Morrissey:

San Giovanni's two noteworthy architectural details are its elongated crownlike dome, designed much later by the prominent architect in Rome at the time, Carlo Maderno, and early on nicknamed the confetto succhiato--half-sucked sweet--by residents of the neighborhood, and its curious lantern, a tall, cylindrical shaft of slender windows that alternate with equally narrow stone buttresses coiled at their base like a tightly wound ribbon. This unusual concoction was designed by a Lombard stonemason who worked as Maderno's assistant, a young man named Castelli, who soon began calling himself Francesco Borromini.

I wish I could find a good photograph of the lantern, but a rough perusal of Google Images doesn't provide any close-ups.

Another quote from the same book:

But even though they have been dirtied by city grit and sullied by the inattentions of a profane age, Sant'Andrea and San Carlo are still marveled at, still compared, still judged. These two buildings, together with dozens of others across the city, have given Rome what Rudolf Wittkower describes as "an appearance of festive splendor." If anyone invented the Rome we know today, it is Bernini and Borromini. It was their passion, their vision, which gave us the Rome of extravagant churches of travertine and broad piazzas of granite. The Rome of towering domes that reach toward God and expansive palazzi that declare the power of man. The Rome we remember and the Rome we dream of.

This book needs more visuals to accompany the beautiful descriptions.

I also started reading Ian McEwan's Atonement, although I didn't get to see the movie adaptation that came out last winter. McEwan's prose style is very graceful, and he draws the most thoroughly conceived characters. Take, for example, his description of Briony:

She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so. Whereas her big sister's room was a stew of books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays, Briony's was a shrine to her controlling demon: the model farm spread across a deep window ledge consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one way--towards their owner--as if about to break into song, and even the farmyard hens were neatly corralled. In fact, Briony's was the only tidy upstairs room in the house. Her straight-backed dolls in their many-roomed mansion appeared to be under strict instructions not to touch the walls; the various thumb-sized figures to be found standing about her dressing table--cowboys, deep-sea divers, humanoid mice--suggested by their even ranks and spacing a citizen's army awaiting orders.

A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. Another was a passion for secrets: in a prized varnished cabinet, a secret drawer was opened by pushing against the grain of a cleverly turned of a cleverly turned dovetail joint, and here she kept a diary locked by a clasp, and a notebook written in a code of her own invention. In a toy safe opened by six secret numbers she stored letters and postcards. An old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed. In the box were treasures that dated back four years, to her ninth birthday when she began collecting a mutant double acorn, fool's gold, a rainmaking spell bought at a funfair, a squirrel's skull as light as a leaf.

But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. [...] Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know.

I can identify with Briony, though I was never that neat and organized.

Premise of Travels With a Tangerine: writer decides to retrace the steps of Ibn Battuta and write a memoir about his journey. I've been meaning to read this book for a long, long time, but didn't get a copy of it until recently. Actually, come to think of it, that was the last time I met up with Cat, earlier in August, when we went to look at a warehouse sale for furniture and then ended up visiting Green Apple Books, where I bought this book. One funny anecdote related early on in the author's adventure (Ibn Battuta is abbreviated as "IB" throughout the book):

'Come with me,' the receptionist invited. 'I will show you another picture of IB.' In the television lounge, he pointed to an old framed photograph on the wall.

'But it's a photograph,' I said.

'Yes. A very old photograph.'

'And he's smoking a water-pipe.'

'Ah, IB knew that water-pipes are healthier than cigarettes.'

'But tobacco came from America, and photography was only invented a hundred and fifty years ago.'

'IB,' said the receptionist, with unanswerable finality, 'was a very great traveller.'

Needless to say, the book is living up to all my expectations.

Jumping on the bandwagon to do the twenty-five first lines meme:

1. Yamamoto cleared his throat twice before he mustered the courage to ring the bell. (Portraiture)

2. It was long past sunset when he came home, tiptoeing around the door with a guilty expression, ready to offer up a half-dozen excuses for his tardiness. (Late)

3. She disappeared in the winter, traveling with her brothers to hunt further and deeper in the mountains, her slim white figure disappearing into the snow. (Separation)

4. "Anna's been looking everywhere for you, Yoh." (An All Too Temporary Reprieve)

5. "One thousand yen, for a batch of Anezaki's chocolates!" Hiruma announced. (Fundraising)

6. "That Sophie Hatter! What a drab little mouse she is." (Self-Esteem)

7. Years later, she still dreamed of water, blue and calm, like a cloudless summer sky, reflecting the bright sun in the ripples around her legs. (Memory)

8. Door disappeared on Christmas Eve. (Mad Lord Time)

9. It is said that a game of igo mirrors the changing universe. (Homecoming: the haiku diary of Torajirou Torajirou)

10. (21:05:31) zelda: hey what are *u* doing on this server? this is insei space (Real)

11. Once, when he was very, very young and still learning intermediate tsumego, he asked his father, then third time Meijin, for an even game. (The Movement of Glaciers)

12. "So this is one of those 'konpata' machines?" Kuwabara said as he sat down gingerly in front of the screen. (Times are Changing)

13. He had never dreamed that baduk players could end up with a rabid fangirl following. (Celebrity)*

14. Torii-sensei looked down at her notebook, her hands twisting nervously. (Future)

15. She looked up from the television as the door slammed shut. (Haunting)

16. "Welcome! Welcome!" Maru and Moro sang out as they danced through the halls. (Choose from our offerings what suits your person)

17. Light, paper-thin pastry shells filled with red bean and honey. (The constant nibbling of small rich confections)

18. He carefully cut a thin slice from the heart and slipped it into his mouth. (Heart, which is firm and rather dry)

19. "My hand is shaking. Why is my hand shaking?" Vash wondered as he attempted to pour himself another shot of whiskey. (An equally vulgar tipple)

20. The first door she ever opened was to the Floating Market, where people greeted her with shuffling bows while she wandered freely through the booths and stalls. (We present you first with the front-door key)

21. Like all mechanics, she loves the shine on a new machine: its well-oiled gears and cogs spinning silently and efficiently, with no sign of wear and tear. (Less gadgetry and more tools)

22. Outside, the air was thick with snow, the sort of snow that fell like powder and rested lightly on branches and eaves. (When something cold comes to call)

23. "What are these?" Sakura asked delightedly, when Syaoran presented her with some tangerines. (If only I'd sent you a map instead)

24. "A feint to the left! Oh, nice dodge-and-attack! But watch out, Kurosaki attacks from above! Will Ikkaku hold out against the onslaught?" (My money's on Mr. Ed)

25. Aren't they beautiful? (Tomorrow you're raving mad. The day after that you're dead.)

* Granted, aishuu came up with this line as the prompt, so it's technically not mine.

The sample is skewed towards my shortest fiction, which admittedly is a little different from the way I write longer fics. Much to my surprise, I usually include an action in my starting line. I also often start with dialogue, but not nearly as often as I thought I did.

A lot of people in fandom think that I write "poetically" but I think you can tell from these first lines that I'm not actually poetic. My writing is heavily visual, but the sentence structure is quite prosaic for the most part, and I don't really use any unique turns of phrase. Metaphors are simple and utilitarian. I also seem to depend on phrase length to set the atmosphere.

Yours &c.

Comments

[fromastudio]

*tries to get the phrasing right* I think your writing is always very carefully crafted, and since that to me's the hallmark of poetry more than anything else (certainly more than creativity of metaphor or sheer experimentation) - I don't think the comparison rings false. But I suspect people are also trying to grasp at that definite sense of aesthetic in your work that I'd struggle to describe myself. It has the ring of - Victorian novels, maybe. The more literary YA fantasies. That ladylike elegant sort of prose that's determined not to draw attention to itself.

[troisroyaumes]

::blushes:: Thank you! I do feel that the "poetic" reputation is undeserved because my actual poetry is not very good. But you may be right; I'm fairly meticulous when it comes to prose, and perhaps that's responsible for the general impression.

I remember you noting that your first lines don't seem to mark you as a stylist, despite the importance you place on style. (I would argue though that your stylistic strengths are not necessarily visible in a single line. Your first lines are like the hushed pause before the curtain goes up.) I actually had the similar feeling about my first lines: given how much I obsess about structure, I was expecting more, well, interesting sentence structure, so it came as a surprise to realize how generic most of my beginnings were. ^_^;;

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Hm. But your writing is really image heavy and you present it very..elegantly? carefully? So your prose ends up sounding poetic..

[troisroyaumes]

Well, yes, it is image-heavy, and I do plan it out very carefully. ^_^ I think though that my prose would translate very badly into actual poetry, which is hardly surprising because I...am a terrible poet. ^_^;; I wonder if this is why people have trouble guessing me correctly in blind_go.

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

I'm going to make the dummest comment on this post, but what is a Vietnamese baguette?

[troisroyaumes]

Not a dumb comment. I called it a Vietnamese baguette because it was made in a Vietnamese bakery, and it tasted very different--denser texture--than a French baguette. Apparently, the term is a valid one: recipe found via Google.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Ah, the little church I was thinking about with the clover-like shape is S. Ivo alla Sapienza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Borromini#Sant.27_Ivo_alla_Sapienza). The interior is beautifully curvilinear. One of his trademarks is the use of ovals, which is prominent in San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Carlo_alle_Quattro_Fontane). S. Carlo is a tiny church (another Borromini thing) tucked away off of one of the big thoroughfares, easy to overlook, but peaceful and gorgeous. The churches in Rome are all beautiful in their own ways, but Borromini's churches somehow express a barely restrained passion, with their curved lines. All of the great architects challenged the artistic tradition in one way or another, but there's something about Borromini's work that is more so than the others. Like Beethoven versus Mozart - both masters, but one brought Classical forms to perfection and the other reinterpreted and challenged them.

Okay, done rambling!

[angelyrique.livejournal.com]

Aha. Nice labor day weekend, mm~~~