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unearths some literary gems.
***
Tarzan (of, if I remember rightly, the Apes)
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Then there is the three-dot trick. At one time those dots indicated an omission. To-day, some of our best use them as an equivalent of the cinema fade-out. Those dots prolong the effect of a word or sentence; they lend it an afterglow. You see what I mean? Afterglow ...
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(And now we’ll have a little novelty. The Great Novelists of to-day number their sections. We’ll have a number without any section. This has never been done be——
4
***
Why was it, Luke asked himself, that she was always so merry and bright with others, and so very different when she was with him? Could it be that she wore a mask to the rest of the world, and disclosed her real self only to him? It could. It could also be just the other way round. That was the annoying part of it.
***
“That’s always the way. Whenever I make a beautiful thing, some cow always gets it. It’s happened before. If I wrote my beautiful biography, some cow would parody it. The world’s full of cows.”
***
He went like a lamb, too broken to resist. I confess I am worried about him. I must try to see him again if
5
a chance of doing so.”
(And that shows you again, how the number of a chapter-section may be used economically.)
***
(The reader is requested to look out. Once more the numbers of the section will be used as a part of the sections. The price of paper is still very high.)
“Just imagine,” said Luke. “Only this morning I was convinced that life was hell. Absolute hell.”
“And now?” asked Jona, shyly.
“Now I know that it’s
7,”
he said, and kissed her.
Luke walked back. It was some time in the small hours that he entered his house burglariously by forcing open the window of a room that had once been called a den.
As he sat at breakfast the next morning, Dot said: “Hope they gave you a good dinner at the ‘Crown’ last night.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really remember what we
8.”
“All love and honey, what?” suggested Dot.
“Dot,” said Luke, “don’t be asi—
9.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Dot “You don’t need to pay any at—
10
tion to my chaff.”
***
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unearths some literary gems.
From How to Do Things Right, by L. Rust Hills:***I keep meaning to go back to Tristram Shandy and track down the examples of all the forms of digression, but there just doesn't seem to be time these days to do worthwhile things like that.***
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unearths some literary gems.
From Back Story, by David Mitchell:***I had to come on in the last scene as a character who hadn’t yet appeared in the play, Signior Anselme. He’s the deus ex machina who miraculously solves everything at the end. This involved a complete costume change for me. Most of the parts I played were servants, but Signior Anselme is an authority figure so my costume was a rather nice cream suit and a silk bow-tie. Not a made-up bow-tie but one you had to tie. I’m okay at doing that. It takes me a couple of minutes but I can fairly reliably make it into something bow-tie shaped. At the age of 22 I was still proud of my bow-tying skill and so, even when I realised that there wouldn’t be a mirror in the wings where I’d be doing my quick change, I didn’t suggest getting a clip-on as backup. ‘I can do it by feel,’ I thought. The problem was that I never knew the extent to which I was right about that, because I couldn’t see the state of the object that was under my chin when I walked on stage. This was a very unfair position to put my already giggly fellow performers in, night after night. ‘What will it be tonight?’ they must have been wondering just before they turned to face me. ‘What insane, lop-sided, unravelling knot, what weird lump or clod of cloth, will be lodged under David’s chin unbeknownst to him as he comes on with the placid face of the character who’s about to resolve the plot?’ Soon it didn’t matter what the tie looked like – they’d still laugh. If it was a disaster, as misshapen as a Generation Game contestant’s first attempt at a pretzel, that would be hilarious. If it was basically okay but a bit wrong on one side, that would be hilarious. If it was totally fine then that would be even more hilarious because it would make a mockery of all their giggling speculation about something disastrous: it would be a hilarious anticlimax. There was actually nothing funnier, they discovered, than me appearing placidly from the wings in a normal-looking tie. The moment had gone toxic.***
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unearths some literary gems.
[The highlight of this book comes right at the beginning, wherein the protagonists make bets about which American movie producer from the Wodehouse oeuvre the producer they're scheduled to meet will most resemble. See attached!]
***
"You know," said Alison, "I was serious-minded before I married you."
"My darling sweet, you couldn't have been, otherwise you never would have married me."
***
"And you think this Glanvilliers Ryanston--oh, my goodness!"
"Yes, it's even worse when you say it than when you only see it written down."
***
She introduced the guests, who learned that the relatives were Aunt Wufilda, Aunt Waltruda, and Uncle Ordulf.
***
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unearths some literary gems.
From Butterfly Brain, by Barry Cryer:***A while back, the Guardian newspaper sent five people to hang about in public places, listen to people talking and bring back the results. My favourite was from a garden centre, where a man was overheard saying that the sundial he bought last year had "paid for itself already." I immediately rang Alan Bennett, because we have a shared love of these sorts of snippets.***From Lost in the Horse Latitudes, by H. Allen Smith's:***[Highlights of the "Principal Characters" section]Charles Daggett, who is careful about pencils.Joan Fontaine, a lap leaper.Paul Jones, a tangent-talker.Havelock Ellis, an expert on things.***From And Now All This, by Sellar & Yeatman***Mt. Everest is 29,002 feet high. Do you consider this sufficient?***
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unearths some literary gems.
***
[Because, I suppose, the book began as a blog à clef (which is especially appropriate given the key-keeping theme!), most of the characters are referred to and addressed only by their titles--Deputy Head Porter, Junior Bursar, Head of Housekeeping--or as "Professor K" and so on. That brings a certain je ne sais quoi (or rather je ne sais qui) that I like. Oh, one twist/exception is the porter whose surname is also Porter. There's also a named character called Professor Fox--who is "trans-Atlantic" and speaks unconvincingly but sometimes amusingly in a mixture of U.S. and UK slang.]***[More hat obsessions! In case you haven't been doing the math, I note that this is a completely different author from (a) the one who wrote The Man Who Became a Hat, and (b) the one who wrote Hats Off to Murder.]It is the fascination of his hat that so enchants me.[later]I always liked wearing a hat. It gave me a sense of purpose.[still later]"Holmes and Watson require the assistance of...Hercule Poirot. And you have the right sort of hat, which is good enough for me."[and]The jolly fedora is instantly familiar.[There is also some one-upping with hats! It is discovered that the porters of a rival college wear top hats, rather than bowlers. The bowler-hatted porters decide that the only way to outdo their rivals now would be to wear crowns.]***We make our way through the cloisters and across the courtyards, Head Porter merrily talking nonsense. Or he could be explaining something relating to College life. It is so very difficult to tell the difference.***"I've been avoiding banquets for years now and am rather adept at it."***"But isn't it a little...spooky?""Spooky? Deputy Head Porter, I am a man of science! I do not get...spooked."He is a Professor of Economics, but maybe that is a type of science. It's not really for me to point this out or to pursue it further.***"He died in Old College?""Yes, in his chair by the fire in the Senior Combination Room. It was nearly a full twenty-four hours before anyone realised he was dead. The latter part of his career was spent asleep in that chair, and it was only when he failed to turn up for lunch the following day that we realised something was amiss.... His passing was very much like his life. Very peaceful. He probably does not even realise he has died."[later]In Doctor D's case, even death wasn't enough to shift him from his seat by the fire.***I am becoming something of a specialist in Matters That Must Be Attended To Immediately. Old College should start offering degrees in it.***"Doctor F is incandescent with rage!"Ha. "Incandescent with rage"! I've only ever seen that phrase written down; I didn't think people actually said it.***She is not amused at the finger of blame being pointed at the Bedders, but once I explain the finger of blame is merely being waved about in general, she relents a little.***I recognize Gustav Holst's "Planet Suite" playing on the record deck.... [Professor K's finger] is vaguely keeping time to the music and his thin, drawn lips are softly humming. I don't think they are humming Holst, but that is hardly my business.***"When furniture becomes unreasonable, one must look out, you know."***"Sir, you know what we were talking about the other day?""Ghosts and ghoulies?"I don't remember ghoulies coming into it, but there you go.***His voice is soft, low and even, each word sounding as if it is floating on a cushion, quite apart from its neighbours.***No point in standing on ceremony. It never stood on me.***This does not merely warm the cockles of my heart; it wraps them in a rug and places them snugly by the fire.***"Don't listen to Head Porter. I mean, no one really does so don't be the first. It's always awful if you're the first to do something."***Getting an unequivocal answer from Professor K was like prising a Fellow away from his dinner--nigh on impossible.***He pauses, [which] he probably thinks is effective, but rather makes him appear to have forgotten what he was saying.***They remain seemingly sempiternal [I didn't know that word! --J.] in Old College until they are called to the great lecture theatre (or, more likely, Dining Room) in the sky.***"I'm just strolling about, you know. I do that from time to time, and many other times," replies the Professor, smiling.***"Snakes! Murderers! Dragons! Socks! Why, it could really be anything!"***I am not as fond of keys as any good Porter should be; as fascinating as many of them are, they can become a little tedious over time. Like people.***"You should both behave a little more like gentlemen.""He wouldn't know a gentleman if one jumped up and bit him on the bum!" he says, jabbing a finger at Head Porter."Gentlemen do not bite people on the bum!" Head Porter retorts, which is a fair enough point, to be honest.***
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unearths some literary gems.
From pieces by Frank Sullivan:
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Then Carnegie whistled the entire score of Piff, Paff, Pouff through twice.
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You can tell the March of Fate by watching the kettledrum player. If he shows signs of working up a sweat, you know you're well into the March of Fate. Fate marches around a good deal in "Beethoven's Fifth." Fate keeps popping in and out of the "Fifth" like the Marx Brothers in the bedroom scene
***
"Where's the screw driver?" I demanded, in a fury of energy.
"It's in The Thing," said the S.S. ["Sainted Sullivan," Frank's sister].
In our house The Thing is the place where the screw driver is when the S.S. can't remember where the screw driver is. The Thing can be the tool shed, the cellar, the attic, milady's chamber, or the lower part of the kitchen cabinet where abandoned string, bent nails, receipted telephone bills, oiled paper and old devilled eggs are kept. Experience has taught me that the screw driver is rarely to be found in The Thing.
[...]
"It's wherever you left it," she said, coolly. The S.S. was in one of her more marked It's-wherever-you-left-it moods that summer. By an odd coincidence it was in that same summer that I was in one of my You-had-it-last moods, so I retorted, "You had it last, you know."
***
If [Grandpa] was in a good humor when he awoke, he would take us youngsters up to Dick Canfield's to play games, but as he was never in a good humor when he awoke, we never went to Dick Canfield's to play games.
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unearths some literary gems.
From a memoir by Jon Pertwee:
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[One of the local postmen] possessed the longest eyebrows I've ever seen on a man, which, when he was at speed, flapped around his eyes alarmingly.
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[Uncle Guy] would start, stop, re-start, hiccup and backfire his way through a sentence, with an "I say, what?--now look here--er--can't ever you do it?--no question!--do what you did--er--Mother, this was delicious, don't you know!"
By profession, he was a teacher of elocution!
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I remember with nostalgia the sight of my father with nervous paper hat from a cracker jammed splitting on his head, involved in a heated political discussion with a guest wearing an equally stupid hat. There are few things in life more ludicrous than the sight of two grown men locked in verbal combat, completely unaware that they are sporting silly paper hats!
***
[Mr. Bloom] wore thick pebble glasses to no apparent purpose, as they rested permanently on the top of his head and were never to be seen on the end of his nose.
***
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