Ohhhh I like this one! How did you decide to use "i" adjectives? Having been trained to never use adjectives in a previous life, I'm going to leap forward and give it a go with something I've written in the last months, maybe try it with adjectives beginning with a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Your posts are reasons why I love Substack Uni.
Thanks, Mary, very kind of you. Well, I'd love to say the 'i' choice was the result of a carefully considered analysis. However, I opened the dictionary randomly, the page that faced me was in the 'i' section, so I just ran with it so to speak. Look forward to seeing your reworked piece with vowel-starting adjectives!
Wow, Terry, this is absolutely fascinating - I learned so much!
My first thoughts were 'wow, I need to calm down my overegged use of adjectives', because your - let's call them 'extreme' - choices drew huge attention to my own adjectival urges. I found that such an interesting lesson for my own writing! 🤣
When I read the story for the second time I found myself thinking about how some of those surprise choices made me feel about what they were describing - as indeed you've said in your post here:
"I think describing a consultation room in a hospital as “indecisive” is, bizarrely, quite apt, or could be in some circumstances."
One of my favourite experiments in style, Terry - I can't wait for your Oulipo course in June!
Thanks, Rebecca. Yes, it's interesting, isn't it, how some of the pairings that shouldn't work actually work very well. Thanks for mentioning my course. It should be a good laugh, and informative and educational.
"Borges was fascinated with the use of kennings, pairs that can lose their initial metaphoric link with the passage of time. Anyway, any translation is suspect; it's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Borgian poetry is also like a surgical knife, a perfectly crafted watch machinery. Thanks for your interesting insights."
Absolutely love this one, Terry. You capture some of the magic of certain writers here. I'm thinking largely of Murakami and also of Borges, too. I love when there is a juxtaposition of two words (often a descriptor and then a noun, as you have noted) that just creates something magical, or indescribable in the way it makes you feel. Obviously use in excess can be too much, but I do enjoy such things a lot. The subtle sense of the surreal that Murakami so often evokes is because of things like this, along with some playful use of metaphors and similes.
"people who isometrically decried" is such a fantastic line.
Thanks, Nathan. Yes, I really like that line too. I am ashamed to say I have never read Murakami, not one word. Is there a particular title you would recommend?
Oh, I didn't realise. Or if I did then I'd forgotten.
Yes, I'd recommend starting where I started, when I was unsure of what I was getting in to:
After The Quake -- it's a collection of short stories, ranging from the mundane to the totally bizarre. It gives you a good flavour for Murakami's range and prose.
If you enjoy that, then there are three options I'd recommend:
Norwegian Wood -- very different to his other work. This is straight up a melancholy love story. There isn't the subtle strangeness that pervades the majority of his work, but it's a heart-breaking and touching story.
Wind Up Bird Chronicle -- possibly my favourite of his stories. A strange tale about a missing cat, a well, and ... all sorts of stuff. It's bizarre, in the best possible way. This has THE BEST opening paragraph in a book I've ever read. It's so ... him. “When the phone ran I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along to an FM broadcast of the overture of Rossini’s ‘The Thieving Magpie,’ which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.”
IQ84 -- tied for my favourite story. This flits between two different characters and how their worlds become entwined. It goes in some strange directions and, if you read this after any others, you begin to see some of the common themes within his work. It's probably one of my favourite books of all time.
Most writers have no style. They sound like the newspaper. And I'm talking big name, best selling writers. So what's the fix? There is none. If we could teach people to be interesting, don't you think we would? : )
Thans for commenting, Richard. Well, I think we can, and I think writers themselves have a responsibility to improve their craft so as to not sound like a dictionary of clichés.
Gulp. Terry. This sounds so much like my own writing it is embarrassing. I need to take stock, my friend! That being said, the middle of the night often seems indecent to me as I roam about unable to sleep. Nausea can be quite insistent. I know a shockingly high number of uneducable people. (This will, of course, become evident during our November elections...) And in our hospital system here nurses always seem Itinerant -- with ten patients each to care for on any shift, it cannot be otherwise. I loved this entire clever thing, old man. Eye-opening.
Ohhhh I like this one! How did you decide to use "i" adjectives? Having been trained to never use adjectives in a previous life, I'm going to leap forward and give it a go with something I've written in the last months, maybe try it with adjectives beginning with a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Your posts are reasons why I love Substack Uni.
Thanks, Mary, very kind of you. Well, I'd love to say the 'i' choice was the result of a carefully considered analysis. However, I opened the dictionary randomly, the page that faced me was in the 'i' section, so I just ran with it so to speak. Look forward to seeing your reworked piece with vowel-starting adjectives!
Wow, Terry, this is absolutely fascinating - I learned so much!
My first thoughts were 'wow, I need to calm down my overegged use of adjectives', because your - let's call them 'extreme' - choices drew huge attention to my own adjectival urges. I found that such an interesting lesson for my own writing! 🤣
When I read the story for the second time I found myself thinking about how some of those surprise choices made me feel about what they were describing - as indeed you've said in your post here:
"I think describing a consultation room in a hospital as “indecisive” is, bizarrely, quite apt, or could be in some circumstances."
One of my favourite experiments in style, Terry - I can't wait for your Oulipo course in June!
https://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/creative-writing-using-constraints
Thanks, Rebecca. Yes, it's interesting, isn't it, how some of the pairings that shouldn't work actually work very well. Thanks for mentioning my course. It should be a good laugh, and informative and educational.
I'm looking forward to being informed, Terry, but how high are your expectations that I am actually educable....?! 😉
Seriously though, I'm really looking forward to it. 😊
😁 me too, assuming it goes ahead. O need a few more enrolments, which typically roll in the week before, which is nerve-wracking
Fingers crossed! 🤞
🫰
"Borges was fascinated with the use of kennings, pairs that can lose their initial metaphoric link with the passage of time. Anyway, any translation is suspect; it's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Borgian poetry is also like a surgical knife, a perfectly crafted watch machinery. Thanks for your interesting insights."
I didn't know about Kennings, Rafa; thanks. Love the watch analogy.
Absolutely love this one, Terry. You capture some of the magic of certain writers here. I'm thinking largely of Murakami and also of Borges, too. I love when there is a juxtaposition of two words (often a descriptor and then a noun, as you have noted) that just creates something magical, or indescribable in the way it makes you feel. Obviously use in excess can be too much, but I do enjoy such things a lot. The subtle sense of the surreal that Murakami so often evokes is because of things like this, along with some playful use of metaphors and similes.
"people who isometrically decried" is such a fantastic line.
Thanks, Nathan. Yes, I really like that line too. I am ashamed to say I have never read Murakami, not one word. Is there a particular title you would recommend?
Oh, I didn't realise. Or if I did then I'd forgotten.
Yes, I'd recommend starting where I started, when I was unsure of what I was getting in to:
After The Quake -- it's a collection of short stories, ranging from the mundane to the totally bizarre. It gives you a good flavour for Murakami's range and prose.
If you enjoy that, then there are three options I'd recommend:
Norwegian Wood -- very different to his other work. This is straight up a melancholy love story. There isn't the subtle strangeness that pervades the majority of his work, but it's a heart-breaking and touching story.
Wind Up Bird Chronicle -- possibly my favourite of his stories. A strange tale about a missing cat, a well, and ... all sorts of stuff. It's bizarre, in the best possible way. This has THE BEST opening paragraph in a book I've ever read. It's so ... him. “When the phone ran I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along to an FM broadcast of the overture of Rossini’s ‘The Thieving Magpie,’ which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.”
IQ84 -- tied for my favourite story. This flits between two different characters and how their worlds become entwined. It goes in some strange directions and, if you read this after any others, you begin to see some of the common themes within his work. It's probably one of my favourite books of all time.
Brilliant. Thanks for such a fulsome response, Nathan
I find this version to be poetic. Poets often string two words together that could potentially work but are questionable at the same time.
My favorites:
Impervious bed.
Isometrically decried.
Thanks, Carissa. Yes, I liked those as well :-)
Most writers have no style. They sound like the newspaper. And I'm talking big name, best selling writers. So what's the fix? There is none. If we could teach people to be interesting, don't you think we would? : )
Thans for commenting, Richard. Well, I think we can, and I think writers themselves have a responsibility to improve their craft so as to not sound like a dictionary of clichés.
To be clear I was talking about fiction. Thanks!
Ha! Same applies though I think!
Gulp. Terry. This sounds so much like my own writing it is embarrassing. I need to take stock, my friend! That being said, the middle of the night often seems indecent to me as I roam about unable to sleep. Nausea can be quite insistent. I know a shockingly high number of uneducable people. (This will, of course, become evident during our November elections...) And in our hospital system here nurses always seem Itinerant -- with ten patients each to care for on any shift, it cannot be otherwise. I loved this entire clever thing, old man. Eye-opening.
😂 Thanks, Sharron!
Iconic. 😏
An impressive comment! Chortle!