There’s something about a well-crafted turn of a phrase that
has always given me pause. Even as a child, when I would read a book and came
across an unexpected, beautifully-turned phrase, I would stop and read just
that phrase, over and over, until I could practically taste it. Then, I would
continue on with the story.
For me to love a book, it must have more than just well-fleshed-out
characters, an engaging story and snappy repartee. The books that stay with me
are the ones whose word choices surprise and delight me, whose phrases are both
unexpected and exquisite. One of the first books I can remember staying with me
is "The Age of Innocence," by Edith Wharton.
"The Age of Innocence" is the story of upper-class
mores of New York society beginning in the 1870s and how, with the turn of the
20th century and passing of generations, change affects every aspect
of the traditions they held so dear. This is a world where style and form are
the highest values. Sounds dry as dust, doesn’t it? But, Edith Wharton’s words
and descriptions bring this world to vivid, delicious life. Instead of merely advising the readers that
the matriarch of that New York society, Mrs. Manson Mingott, is fat, Ms.
Wharton wrote: “The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in
middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump
active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast
and august as a natural phenomenon.” I clearly remember reading this for the
first time in high school and rolling the words “the immense accretion of
flesh” around on my tongue.
Instead of a mundane throw-away line about the matriarch no
longer being physically active, Ms. Wharton wrote: “The burden of Mrs. Manson
Mingott’s flesh had long since made it impossible for her to go up and down
stairs….” The burden of her flesh – I love this phrase. It is succinct, concise
and descriptive without being maudlin. It is perfect.
The protagonist of the story, Newland Archer, is a young man
of modern values who is constrained by the traditions of the society in which
he, his family and friends lived. As described by Wharton, they lived above the
“unruffled surface of New York society.” Newland was engaged to be married to
May Welland, which would accomplish not only his own betrothal but the merger
of two honored New York families. While watching his fiancée from across the
audience of the old opera house, Newland “contemplated her absorbed young face
with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation
was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity.” With all deference
to modern culture, isn’t this a much nicer way of saying that he was proud of
himself for being the one to snag this beautiful, young virgin? In literature,
whether old or new, it’s all about the words.
Bio:
Sue is a typical Gemini – she craves novelty and variety and gets bored easily. These traits have served Sue well, leading her to try her hand at many fields. Over the last 25% years, Sue is and has been an attorney, corporate risk manager, personal caterer and editor. Currently, Sue is exercising her passion for voice acting by narrating the fabulous fiction of author Imogen Rose.http://www.imogenrose.com/index.php?p=1_52_Audio- You can also catch Sue on TV in a national commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts. Sue lives in New Jersey with her husband, son and three very large cats.
