Greetings!
Welcome to my ongoing (and potentially never-ending!) project, experiments in style. The Introduction below explains what it’s all about, but if you already know then just go straight to the Overblown version, below.
Enjoy!
Introduction
One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:
Here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:
The original (template) text
In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.
The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.
The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.
An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.
The overblown version
Walls. They enclose us. They protect us. Yet they also separate us. A few nights ago, safely ensconced in the arms of Morpheus, I was awakened long before Aurora appeared sprinkling her sweet dew. “Why?”, you ask. Because I needed to avail myself of the ablutionary facilities that grace our humble abode. Sadly, while it is not my praxis to attempt to walk through the walls to which I alluded earlier in this brief report, due to my somnolent state I was disoriented, and therefore perambulated rather too rapidly into solid brick instead of attempting the more logical means of egress, to whit the door.
As you may imagine, for what seemed like an inordinate length of time, but which in actuality was merely two or three diurnal cycles, I suffered from headaches in both their literal form of neuralgia and consequently their metaphorical one in the form of vexation, accompanied – indubitably – by a certain degree of nausea.
Despite this being at a time when Nergal had awoken from his Mesopotamian slumbers, I ventured forth to the local hospital in the hope that there, at least, Asclepius held sway. Alas, despite the dire warnings and proclamations to which we had perforce become accustomed, the people to whom I had the misfortune to be in proximity apparently regarded the rules as advisory rather than mandatory. I even wondered whether this was the place that Fate had decreed I would shuffle off this mortal coil.
Happily, despite my discomfort occasioned by the aforementioned circumstances, I was able to read another 17 percent of my book. In the fullness of time I was examined, and found to be in need of no greater medicine than some rest.
When I finally emerged from that benighted place Hesperides was starting her shift. Yet I felt strangely buoyant of mood.
Over to you
I’d love to know what you think of this version, so please leave a comment.
Oh, Terry, BRAVO!!!
When I read your introduction I thought I would know how your text would read - and I was so wrong! I had been thinking along the lines of the sort of writing I used to do as a teenager, with verb clauses peppered with adverbs, strings of adjectives accompanying every noun and incomprehensible metaphors that had suffered - screaming - the unwanted attentions of a Magimix.
But no! Your latest experiment is the epitome of style, dressed up to the nines in a velvet smoking jacket and brocade slippers. And more: it has a rose in its teeth, an ironed copy of 'The Times' under its arm and the crook of a furled Fulton umbrella resting delicately on its handsome wrist.
I, too, feel strangely buoyant of mood. Terry, I thank you.
Very clever, Terry. I hate this kind of writing! In fact I just rejected a (highly recommended) book this morning - The Lies Of Locke Lamora" because it was just so damned dense and over-written. I gave it three chapters then threw it across the room. I am not a minimalist, by any means. I LOVE language, The music of words delights me. But not thousands of unneeded words. ( Was the writer maybe getting paid by the word?) Ooops, sorry, a little rant. You got me going. Yes -- more is not necessarily better. Thank you.