Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
I enoy the literary discussions on Ricochet. Each time we have one my reading list gets that much longer. In the past week or so we’ve talked about the most moving scenes in literature, the funniest scenes, and the books that have been turned into great movies -- and those are the ones I remember.
For years, I’ve been a collector of sentences.
Tom Clancy could put together a great plot, but his sentences were mostly leaden. D H. Lawrence’s novels are filled with animal passion, but the prose is horrid. Vince Flynn is a master of the well-written action scene, but we don’t read him for the beautiful prose (don’t get me wrong, he can really write).
Other writers are poetic, writing the occasional great sentence or paragraph, but their books just don’t hold together as stories.
The best writers combine plot, characterization, scene, dialogue, humor, and “felicitous” sentences. (Random House: “Felicitous: well-suited for the occasion, as an action, manner, or expression; apt . . . .”). Jane Austen may be the best at combining all the elements.
For the most part the great sentences I’ll quote below come from great pieces of literature, but a great sentence can exist in an inferior piece of writing.
What do I mean by a “great sentence”? They come in many varieties. Some perfectly describe an event or scene. Some are pure poetry. Some state with clarity a beautiful truth. Others are perfectly hilarious.
The opening line of Pride and Prejudice is “all the above”: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
In political writing, Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg create memorable, telling sentences.
The Bible is filled with great sentences. How about these three from just the first chapter of Ecclesiastes?:
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.” [KJV Ecclesiastes 1:4]
“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” [KJV Ecclesiastes 1:7]
“For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” [KJV Ecclesiastes 1:18]
Great sentences can transform even the simplest scene into a spiritual moment. In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Jim, the young narrator, and his friend Antonia visit two Russian bachelors eking out a living on poor, remote farmland. As they sit in the Russians’ ramshackle cabin, Jim, the young narrator, describes the sound of the wind (to be fair, there are three sentences here, but the first two lead in to the last one, which is perfect):
“The wind shook the doors and windows impatiently, then swept on again, singing through the big spaces. Each gust, as it bore down, rattled the panes, and swelled off like the others. They made me think of defeated armies, retreating; or of ghosts, who were trying desperately to get in for shelter, and then went moaning on.”
With its two similes and powerful verbs, Cather in this sentence creates an unforgettable image of the wind rolling across open prairie.
Consider a single sentence from the “The Martyr,” a short story by the Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutogawa. In 18 simple words, the author captures the essence of the passage of time:
“A year passed like a snowflake that falls into the river, a moment white and then gone forever.”
For the young, time is glacial. But for people like me, who long ago passed life’s mid-point, this sentence describes time as we now experience it: a brief white moment, then forever gone.
Or this very long sentence from the Robert Fagles translation of the Iliad, where Homer uses the advancing sea as a metaphor for the attacking Achean (Greek) army:
“As a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast,
piling breaker on breaker whipped by the West Wind,
and out on the open sea a crest first rears its head
then pounds down on the shore with hoarse,
rumbling thunder against some rocky spit, exploding salt foam to the skies—
so wave on wave they came, Achean battalions ceaseless surging on to war.”
Because the sea was a constant presence to the Acheans (they fought with their backs to the sea throughout the decade-long Trojan War), it is a perfect metaphor for inexorable Achean battalions surging forward to destroy Troy.
Finally, consider this sentence from Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. Ada and Inman, now reunited, contemplate their future together. A lesser writer might have written: “The prospect of long happy lives together stretched out before them.” Instead, Frazier found a vivid, beautiful way of saying much the same thing:
“They would grow old together measuring time by the life spans of a succession of speckled bird dogs.”
It's quite easy to tell a great sentence: after you read one, you think, "Wow! I could die happy if I'd written that."
The floor is yours. Who writes great sentences? Give us examples. What makes them great? [Note: Jane Austen sentences gratefully accepted in this thread].
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Sentences? Just sentences? Richard Brautigan.
Aug '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
From the best American novel (imho)
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
...from the best state too !
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
flownover: From the best American novel (imho)
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
...from the best state too ! · 0 minutes ago
Mark Twain is from Utah? Who knew?
Sep '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Mark Helprin. Its not even a contest.
Mar '11
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
flownover, Twain's greatest sentences gleam.
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
If we're talking current writers, I think it's a contest with three major contenders: Helprin, Marilynne Robinson, and Tom Wolfe. Robinson just published a new book and the other two have novels out in October.
Robinson just published a new book of essays: When I Was a Child I Read Books.
Helprin's In Sunlight and in Shadows comes out October 2.
Wolfe's Back to Blood comes out on October 23.
Is that a literary feast, or what?
Edited on September 16, 2012 at 2:47amJun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Double post
Edited on September 16, 2012 at 2:46amMar '11
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
In the spirit of Dickens (opening sentence), " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,... ", and on and on. The late Robert B. Parker, "Thin Air"(opening sentence), "I was bucks up." Concision is the soul of brevity.
Oct '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
I don't have my copy of Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen with me which has some beautiful stuff in it, so I wasn't going to participate here, but I was randomly reading Galahad at Blandings that I picked up to pass a few minutes and ran across a favorite passage that ends with a very felicitous string of words from Galahad.
'Oh, by the way, Lord Emsworth,' she said, 'I nearly forgot to ask you. Who would that boy be? A small boy with a face like a prune run over by a motor bus.'
Lords Emsworth was baffled. He had no solution to offer. It was left to Gally to supply the information. The description, he said, fitted Dame Daphne Winkworth's son Huxley like the paper on the wall and could scarcely have been improved upon by the most meticulous stylist.
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Severely Ltd.:
I'm re-reading the Jeeves/Wooster books for the third or fourth time. It's amazing how fresh and plentiful the funny lines are, even after reading them many times.
Here're a couple of my favorites:
In this one Bertie is engaged against his will to Honoria Glossop, who intends to improve Bertie's mind:
Bertie describes a rugby team:
May '11
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
No contest. Sir Terry Pratchett.
An example:
“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Oct '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
tabula rasa
I'm re-reading the Jeeves/Wooster books for the third or fourth time. It's amazing how fresh and plentiful the funny lines are, even after reading them many times.
Like favorite bits of poetry, they improve with rereading. That description of Honoria's laugh, 'like a squad of cavalry charging over a tin bridge', is simile at its absolute best.
The fact that his stuff gets better on rereading guarantees that a Wodehousian will never run out of good books or laughs. Thank God he was as prolific as he was so that I don't have to read the same half dozen over and over.
Dec '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Ring Larder, The Young Immigrunts
"The lease said about my and my fathers trip from the Bureau of Manhattan to our new home the soonest mended. In some way ether I or he got balled up on the grand concorpse and next thing you know we was thretning to swoop down on Pittsfield.
Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
Shut up he explained."
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Severely Ltd.
Like favorite bits of poetry, theyimprovewith rereading. . . .
I wish I'd said that--perfect description of the magic of Wodehouse.
Jul '11
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Heinlein hits the money with the second sentence.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert A. Heinlen
Nov '11
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
We probably need a post on Wodehouse's sentences alone, though the same could be said of most of the other writers cited here, and especially of Twain and Austen. Personal confession, which you Wodehousians will understand: I am the owner of a cow creamer.
From Jeeves Takes Charge, Jeeves to Bertie: I think you would also have found her educational methods a little trying, sir....it was her intention to start you almost immediately upon Nietzsche. You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.
and from The Luck of the Bodkins: Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French.
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Sandy: I am the owner of a cow creamer.
FromJeeves Takes Charge,Jeeves to Bertie: I think you would also have found her educational methods a little trying, sir....it was her intention to start you almost immediately upon Nietzsche. You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.
and from The Luck of the Bodkins: Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. · 20 minutes ago
Two thoughts:
Wow: an actual cow creamer. For non-Wodehousians, an antique cow creamer (a dispenser of cream at tea that is in the shape of a cow) was a central element of a Jeeves/Wooster novel. A banjo was key to another.
Second. Jeeves is right. Nietzsche is fundamentally unsound.
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Following up on Sandy's post, Wodehouse would often insert wonderful little references to other contemporary writers and artists into his stories. My favorite is this completely gratuitous reference, in a Mr. Mulliner story, to the super-sized largeness of G. K. Chesterton:
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
David Knights: No contest. Sir Terry Pratchett.
An example:
“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo · 13 hours ago
I've always felt that Pratchett was the heir to Wodehouse. The universe is different, but the humor is just as brilliant:
Nanny Ogg's approach to singing:
I think Death is my favorite character. He shows up (except when he's down in the dumps) to collect you after you die. He's a bit sensitive and vulnerable, but always speaks in CAPITAL LETTERS:
Here Pratchett does a great riff on Latin and Julius Caesar:
Jun '10
Re: Who Writes the Most Felicitous Sentences?
Here are a couple of great sentences from A Soldier of the Great War:
This one describes an old man trying to get to a trolley stop in time:
Or this observation on young boy/men:
Edited on September 16, 2012 at 5:22pm