The New York Times has begun what promises to be a *fantastic* series called "Draft," on the art & craft of writing. (Please go check it out, so they get good traffic/stats and choose to continue it!) Here's an excerpt from one of the pieces, by Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri, who is a master of powerful, evocative writing:
“For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do. . . .
We encounter books at different times in life, often appreciating them, apprehending them, in different ways. But their language is constant. The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail.”
In a poem each line makes an impact. But in a book with thousands of sentences, the reader might not stop and notice great sentences. For me the best in the article was: "We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall."
ReplyDeleteI think you're in my head. I posted a blog about this very article and quoted that exact line! haha. Jhumpa Lahiri always says things the way I wish I knew how. Perfectly captured, indeed.
ReplyDeleteShe is an absolutely lovely writer, but that excerpt was so metaphorical that it quite simply disappeared from my head as soon as I'd finished reading it.
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