Hatrack River Forum: Toward More Picturesque Speech . . .

This is topic Toward More Picturesque Speech . . . in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

Reader's Digest had (or still has??) a column called "Toward More Picturesque Speech". In that column, readers would send in snippets of literature they had come across that exemplified particularly vivid use of language. Sometimes it was a particularly apt metaphor or striking description of something. Other times it was simply a nice turn of phrase.

I though it might be fun to do something like that in this thread. Whenever we come across some particularly nice usage of language in our reading, let's post the snippet here. As in Reader's Digest (and in keeping with the TOS of Hatrack's forum) it would probably be best to limit snippets to no more than a couple of sentences per citation. The kind of stuff I'm talking about is often even less.

Please include at least author and title of the piece from which you are quoting.

[ September 28, 2005, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: KarlEd ]

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

I'll start:

quote:
"Listening carefully, I realized that she must be speaking Hungarian; I knew at least that Romanian was a Romance language, so I though I might have understood a few words. But what Helen was speaking sounded like the galloping of horses, a Finno-Ugric stampede that I cold not arrest with my ear for even a second."

-The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

Speech.

That is all. [Evil]

Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :

Oh great idea for a thread! I don't have one at the moment, but I will post some later.

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jon Boy:
Speech.

That is all.

<--dies of embarrassment. [Blushing]

<--also had to look up "embarrassment" [Blushing]

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

[nevermind -- you're right, I'm wrong]

FG

[ September 28, 2005, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: Farmgirl ]

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

Sorry 'bout that, Karl. It was just too tempting.

There's one particular line from The Fellowship of the Ring that I just love, but I don't know it offhand. I'll try to find it later.

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :

Jon Boy if you tell us roughly where in the book it appears I'm pretty there are folks here who would know it.

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

I think it's in the Old Forest. It starts out something like "and all the leaves were green and grey . . ." The imagery is cool, but I especially love the perfect iambic meter.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

There are a couple of passages from Tom Robbins Jitterbug Perfume that I want to include here, but it will have to wait until I can get my hands on either my qoute cards or the book itself.

Posted by Diosmel Duda (Member # 2180) on :

Ah, it's the perfectly iambic one:

"and all the stems were grey and green and hung with thick and shaggy growths."

I believe.

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

Stars, hide you fires. Let not light see my dark and deep desires.

I love that one for the image and the shameful desperation.

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Diosmel Duda:
Ah, it's the perfectly iambic one:

"and all the stems were grey and green and hung with thick and shaggy growths."

I believe.

If that's not it, it's something very close to that.