Two Writers' Hands
On page 2 of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards:
Here's the next-to-last sentence:
Then I picked up Fahrenheit 451. On the third page, I read:
I will follow you to the end of this book, Ray Bradbury.
On page 2 of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards:
"Her hands were slender, her fingers short and sturdy, and she bit her bottom lip lightly, intently, as she read."I could not stand to keep reading a book with such nonsensical and/or clichéd descriptions. I flipped 398 pages to the last page.
Here's the next-to-last sentence:
"Paul noticed how short and clipped her fingernails were, how delicate her hands looked ..."Yep. I put it down.
Then I picked up Fahrenheit 451. On the third page, I read:
"The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here, moving in the starlight toward his house. He had felt that a moment prior to his making the turn someone had been there.I have never read such a description (except when I read this book in high school, which I don't remember). Walking into the ghost heat of a person. And the character is a fireman.
. . . Perhaps the skin on the backs of his hands, on his face, felt the temperature rise at this one spot where a person's standing might raise the immediate atmosphere ten degrees for an instant."
I will follow you to the end of this book, Ray Bradbury.
Ray Bradbury is an excellent writer, but I must admit, "Fahrenheit 451" has never been one of my favorites. I much prefer the sci-fi space stuff.
ReplyDeleteI searching the Edwards book with Amazon’s Look Inside. There are a great many hands, most of which seem to be small. My eye caught this:
ReplyDelete"What about your hands?" he shouted, his voice ringing, cascading like the water. "You didn't bring any gloves."
Ringing? Cascading? He said four one-syllable words.
Four million copies sold — sheesh. That's a lot of hands, and a lot of cash registers ringing.
Think of how weird that would look: short, sturdy, fingers with slender hands. At total mismatch or mishmash--right away, I don't believe in those hands; so how does the author expect you to believe in his story?
ReplyDeleteSTEVE: I loved Bradbury in high school--haven't read him much since but would far rather read him than Heinlein!
ReplyDeleteSadly, the ideas of Fahrenheit 451 are spookily relevant today--replace thinking with "positive thinking".
MICHAEL: I LOVE that you looked that up! What writerly fetish is this? Whatever it is, it's written about in such a plodding way.
BINK: Right? I thought so too--slender palms, with stubby protrusions?
Ha!
And again, right--if we can't believe in that, how can we enter into the story?
Like my example a while ago of the spy who didn't know to take off his wet shoes so as not to leave footprints.
Ya lost me there, buddy.