tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post2569900471720194469..comments2023-11-30T02:30:42.825-08:00Comments on E a r t h G o a t: In praise of the long sentenceGrendelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-75992434671443283172009-03-06T16:05:00.000-08:002009-03-06T16:05:00.000-08:00And I am reading it now, page 80ish. It's kind of...And I am reading it now, page 80ish. It's kind of hard to put down, but it started precariously slow.Grendelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-83941392589661865422009-02-04T15:18:00.000-08:002009-02-04T15:18:00.000-08:00Five pages. I must read this book, that you call 2...Five pages. I must read this book, that you call 2666.Grendelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-21590009609392568002009-02-03T19:16:00.000-08:002009-02-03T19:16:00.000-08:00I was going to type in the sentence from 2666 unti...I was going to type in the sentence from 2666 until I looked back and realized that IT IS FIVE PAGES LONG. It's a little bit dubious, because there were at least two commas that just as easily could have been periods, but who am I to question Bolano or the translator, and even with two dubious commas, that's still a whole lot of sentence. And to your point, Grendel, about the necessity of proving this skill early on in a book, the sentence I'm talking about starts on page 17.Cristinahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10276295353698450095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-87618288157110345792009-02-03T02:51:00.000-08:002009-02-03T02:51:00.000-08:00"...latticed with yellow slashes full of dust mote..."...latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes." <BR/><BR/>That sentence, and especially this phrase, has been in my mental 'wow' catalog since I read it a few years ago. It's so f'n new and vivid.the plungehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13380479707119765371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-50516550295308528292009-02-02T10:37:00.000-08:002009-02-02T10:37:00.000-08:00This has long been one of my favorite longs. It's ...This has long been one of my favorite longs. It's Virginia Woolf's essay "On Being Ill":<BR/><BR/>Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm-chair and confuse his "Rinse the mouth—rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us—when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.Vampirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00306567002385917105noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-49344163793609263582009-02-01T18:48:00.000-08:002009-02-01T18:48:00.000-08:00I took a class in college once where one of the as...I took a class in college once where one of the assignments was to write a page-long sentence. <BR/><BR/>Also, I'm reading 2666 right now and I encountered a long sentence pretty early on in it that I loved. I'll have to look back and get a page number for you. <BR/><BR/>My longest sentence lately was 11 or 12 lines. That's a rarity for me. But I think it's fair to say, because of the plethora of ands the sentence contained, that I was pretty much cheating anyway.Cristinahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10276295353698450095noreply@blogger.com