I love Alice Munro and this post! So timely for me because I'm reading Ruth Ozeki's My Year of Meats, and about a quarter of the way in I thought, "Wait, how did she do that?" I felt wholly invested in her characters. She did it out of sight, when my attention was elsewhere, apparently. Your posts are making me a better reader. Thank you!
Thank you, Mary! I am such a Munro fan that I could easily do a newsletter of just favorite Alice Munro sentences. And I've never read My Year of Meats -- should i?
Hi Ben, I’ve just recommended One Sentence to my writing classs. So good. I am very curious about your bookshelves. (Retired librarian and former bookseller here.) Please think about sharing a photo? Best to you.
Thank you! And I'll definitely think about posting a photo! The most revealing book-depository in my house tends to be the bedside heap, which gets increasingly out of control until either my wife or my sense of dignity intervenes.
How did I not realise that ventriloquism comes from the French, “ventre” the stomach, the guts?
Ventriloquist: English definition
a person, especially an entertainer, who can make their voice appear to come from somewhere else, typically a dummy of a person or animal.
ventriloque adj. et n. m. et f. adjectif et nom masculin et féminin Se dit d'une personne qui peut parler en conservant la bouche fermée. Un clown ventriloque. | Une ventriloque.
Ventriloquism is an art form that serves as a perfect metaphor for a novelist or a fiction writer. It is a skill that utterly eludes me.
You said :
“It is easy to catch a writer writing beautifully… there the beautiful writing sits --melodious, fancy, quivering with sensitivity…
But it’s hard, ivory-billed woodpecker hard --to catch a writer bringing a character to life”.
And how true that is. I write easily, in a “hand-of-God” kind of way at certain moments and for certain occasions but that “stomach speech”, the art of implanting a voice into someone else, that utterly eludes me -- absolutely. My lips move a mile a minute and what spews from my mouth sounds so hokey and fake.
And yet, as you say, when you hear the voice of that ivory-billed woodpecker start to warble… there is no music so sweet, no tune so easy to identify as true.
I’ve been thinking about why it’s so difficult. Maybe the thing to do is to listen, really concentrate on how people speak and not to focus on what is being said, but rather what is meant --or what is being betrayed by those chirping woodpeckers.
Anyhow… thank you for your insight and observations which are always “melodious, fancy and quivering with sensitivity…”
I love Alice Munro and this post! So timely for me because I'm reading Ruth Ozeki's My Year of Meats, and about a quarter of the way in I thought, "Wait, how did she do that?" I felt wholly invested in her characters. She did it out of sight, when my attention was elsewhere, apparently. Your posts are making me a better reader. Thank you!
Thank you, Mary! I am such a Munro fan that I could easily do a newsletter of just favorite Alice Munro sentences. And I've never read My Year of Meats -- should i?
I would definitely read that newsletter. I'll report back when I finish My Year of Meats but I suspect it will be a yes!
Hi Ben, I’ve just recommended One Sentence to my writing classs. So good. I am very curious about your bookshelves. (Retired librarian and former bookseller here.) Please think about sharing a photo? Best to you.
Thank you! And I'll definitely think about posting a photo! The most revealing book-depository in my house tends to be the bedside heap, which gets increasingly out of control until either my wife or my sense of dignity intervenes.
How did I not realise that ventriloquism comes from the French, “ventre” the stomach, the guts?
Ventriloquist: English definition
a person, especially an entertainer, who can make their voice appear to come from somewhere else, typically a dummy of a person or animal.
ventriloque adj. et n. m. et f. adjectif et nom masculin et féminin Se dit d'une personne qui peut parler en conservant la bouche fermée. Un clown ventriloque. | Une ventriloque.
Ventriloquism is an art form that serves as a perfect metaphor for a novelist or a fiction writer. It is a skill that utterly eludes me.
You said :
“It is easy to catch a writer writing beautifully… there the beautiful writing sits --melodious, fancy, quivering with sensitivity…
But it’s hard, ivory-billed woodpecker hard --to catch a writer bringing a character to life”.
And how true that is. I write easily, in a “hand-of-God” kind of way at certain moments and for certain occasions but that “stomach speech”, the art of implanting a voice into someone else, that utterly eludes me -- absolutely. My lips move a mile a minute and what spews from my mouth sounds so hokey and fake.
And yet, as you say, when you hear the voice of that ivory-billed woodpecker start to warble… there is no music so sweet, no tune so easy to identify as true.
I’ve been thinking about why it’s so difficult. Maybe the thing to do is to listen, really concentrate on how people speak and not to focus on what is being said, but rather what is meant --or what is being betrayed by those chirping woodpeckers.
Anyhow… thank you for your insight and observations which are always “melodious, fancy and quivering with sensitivity…”
I had no idea of the etymology of ventriloquist, thank you! and thank you for reading so thoughtfully in general!
Wonderfully insightful clause: "it s memorable not in the way books are memorable, but in the way life is memorable."