Re: words, words, words

    There's no pleasing me, Diego.

    On the one hand, I take a kind of laughing pleasure
    in the way Hemingway will at one time deliberately
    & perversely break up the rhythm of his sentences
    & at another make what sounds like the affected choice
    of the formal or unexpected word ('commenced' for
    'began', 'would not' for 'wouldn't', & so on.) It FEELS
    like advanced games playing in order to make the reader
    pay attention, give due weight to each word - rather as
    a painter will force you to be aware of each of his little
    tiles of paint. And I love it.

    Then, on the other, I crib when Conrad is doing
    the selecting because he will seem to me to have come to
    that same 'odd' word by dredging through the alternatives
    offered by his thesaurus.

        "The words rolled out to wander without a home upon
        the heartless sea".

    Fair enough. One just can see them drifting away, like lost
    souls, their poignancy lost forever on the ocean air. But what
    about 'missing the unsteady hearts of men'? Why unsteady?
    Does this refer to the essential fickleness of all men,
    or the dyrhythmic hearts of a stricken crew? The 'missing'
    is normally done by the hearts - like clumsy catchers failing
    to field a high ball, but here it seems to be the words which fail
    to strike their target. One is - or, at least, I am - left in a very
    mild state of uncertainty & frustration: not feeling, as I do
    when brought up short by Ernie: 'Ah YES. Of course.
    You old bastard.'

    Then,
        "the frank, audacious faces of men barefooted, well armed
        and noiseless''

    'Frank' & 'audacious' seem to me to sit oddly together. 'Frank'
    has the feeling of 'unapologetic', 'open', perhaps even 'innocent.'
    Whereas 'audacious' carries the quality of boldness, provocation,
    in-yer-faceness. You CAN ram them into the same slot & achieve,
    perhaps, a sense of ambiguous subtlety. But I personally retain
    the lingering suspicion: 'Did he really mean that or is he simply
    mixing a couple of odd ingredients in the hope of producing
    a nouvelle cuisine?'

    On the other hand, 'well' armed sounds, again to me, fatally
    bathetic. 'Armed & noiseless' would, indeed, freeze the blood
    with its menacing brevity. 'Well armed' is getting a bit too damned
    close to 'jolly well armed.'

    Don't mind this cantankerous old shit, though. It can only ever be
    a matter of the individual ear. Mine is no doubt getting a bit tinny
    with advancing years.

    Scottie B.

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Received on Thu Aug 7 04:08:05 2003