Impactful Words, Part II
Many of us bloggers are also voracious readers, and noticing special combinations of nouns, verbs, and adjectives that inspire or challenge us is a fun and, I think, worthwhile exercise. It has also been enjoyable to comb my bookshelves, triggering memories of certain periods in my life when these books struck a chord. Here are four more passages that have had an impact on me as a reader, writer, and/or person:
1. E.B. White’s Here is New York:
In the candid light from unshaded bulbs gleam watermelons and lingerie. Families have fled the hot rooms upstairs and have found relief on the pavement. They sit on orange crates, smoking, relaxed, congenial. This is the nightly garden party of the vast Lower East Side–and on the whole they are more agreeable-looking-hot-weather groups than some you see in bright canvas deck chairs on green lawns in country circumstances. It is folksy here with the smell of warm flesh and squashed fruit and fly-bitten filth in the gutter, and cooking.
I remember reading White’s Here is New York during a creative non-fiction course during sophomore year at Middlebury College. This course served up a series of moments when I realized it could be as enjoyable to read well-written non-fiction as it is to devour a wonderful novel.
Paul Barnwell 
Becks,
This passage resonates with me, as I find the process recollection, nostalgia, and even haunting memories to be a fascinating part of the human condition. Thanks for sharing!
I read the History of Love four years ago and although I do not typically choose fiction, I fell in love with this book, particulary with the old man who narrates a good bit of it. I find that I love good characterization in stories, whether the stories are written, acted, or documented, as one of my main interests lies in discovering the ins and outs of personalities and relationship dynamics. The quote below from the History of Love has always stuck with me. It is probably more meaningful in the context of the entire book, but it has always conjured up this very clear image for me of this older, stooped reclusive man, furiously moving in a frenzy of both memories of joy and sadness.
““I took a drink, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, repeating the gesture that was made a hundred times by my father and his father and his father’s father, eyes half closed as the sharpness of alcohol replaced the sharpness of grief. And then, when the bottle was gone, I danced. Slowly at first. But getting faster. I stomped my feet and kicked my legs, joints cracking. I pounded my feet and crouched and kicked in the dance my father danced, and his father, tears sliding down my face as I laughed and sang, danced and danced until my feet were raw and there was blood under my toenail, I danced the only way I knew how to dance: for life, crashing into the chairs, and spinning until I fell, so that I could get up and dance again, until dawn broke and found me prostrate on the floor, so close to death I could spit into it and whisper: L’chaim.”
Kind of like Vladimir Nabokov…but for him, English was a third language. Truly amazing.
Aside from Shakespeare, the greatest wordsmith I have ever encountered is Joseph Conrad — and he was working in a second language!
Wouldn’t miss it!!! 🙂 Thanks for your great work! And back at you – thanks for staying engaged in my little world as well!
Great passage Issac, definitely resonates. Sometimes, it doesn’t take much, or it can be a single student, to inspire me as a teacher or pick me up on any given day.
I did notice your Alchemist post…Thanks again for being a steady reader of the Stew!
Thanks for the tip, I’ll check it out. I have a slight addiction to ordering used books from amazon:)
I’ve been mulling over some quotes since your last post. This is more of a passage, but I’ll post it since you have enjoyed a previous one from the same book. I think it may resonate with you as a teacher:
“Gvarab was old enough that she often wandered and maundered. Attendance at her lectures was small and uneven. She soon picked out the thin boy with big ears as her one constant auditor. She began to lecture for him. The light, steady, intelligent eyes met hers, steadied her, woke her, she flashed to brilliance, regained the vision lost. She soared, and the other students in the room looked up confused or startled, even scared if they had the wits to be scared. Gvarab saw a much larger universe than most people were capable of seeing, and it made them blink. The light-eyed boy watched her steadily. In his face she saw her joy. What she offered, what she had offered for a whole lifetime, what no one had ever shared with her, he shared. He was her brother, across the gulf of fifty years, and her redemption.”
– from The Dispossessed
Watermelons and lingere – I love that! The Alchemist post with my illuminating Blogger post was kind of my attempt to answer your question here. I know I have others. Maybe for another post. The Grapes of Wrath was one that I got a lot out of….thanks for another thought-provoking post!
My favorite recent read is Chang Rae Lee’s “The Surrendered.” Beautifully written.