Another Third Sentence Thursday

The third sentence of this book reads, "She had a little thin face and little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression."

OMG! This must be YA novel, probably of vampire/Twilight genre, featuring a heroine based on Paris Hilton having a bad hair day. Will she be forced to choose between the handsome, yet fashion-impaired vampire Luigi or the debonair werewolf, Omar, who suffers the heartbreak of psoriasis? And what of her darling pet albino Chihuahua who is aptly named Assassin? What unspeakable (or is it unbarkable?) secrets does this vicious little critter hide?

Fortunately, this novel is none of the above. It is the story of Mary Lennox, a nine-year old girl who is the heroine of The Secret Garden, which was published in 1911, way before Ms. Hilton's time.

Another Third Sentence Thursday

The Pleasure of Books (part 2): Long Live Print!

In an earlier post, The Pleasure of Books, we touched upon the touchy subject of print versus E-books. The Demon, being partial to print, was therefore delighted to find the following book, with the spot-on title, It's a Book by Lane Smith.

The Pleasure of Books (part 2): Long Live Print!

Third Sentence Thursday

Sniffy Kitty's Mostly Books Blog has started a new meme: Third Sentence Thursday. The goal is to find a funny thirdy sentence of a book and make some egregious commentary on said sentence (or something like that!). 

My chosen third sentence is from Jim Butcher's White Night:

Usually, by the time the cops call me, things are pretty frantic; there’s at least one corpse, several cars, a lot of flashing blue lights, yellow-and-black tape; and members of the press – or at least the promise of the imminent arrival of same.

Jeez buddy, you just have to be the center of attention, don't ya? Cripes, it's because of people like you that "I" appears twice in the word narcissist. Okay, I'm putting down this book; I need some time for myself...

Third Sentence Thursday

The Much Awaited Sequel to Despereaux!

Desperadeaux: Being the tale of a Mouse, Billy the Kid,

Some Vigilantes, and a Pocketful Full of Gold Coins.

This eagerly awaited sequel to Despereaux features Desperadeaux, who is none other than the nephew of Despereaux. Unlike his uncle, Desperadeaux finds himself bored with the provincial ennui of Europe, the self-absorbed inanity endemic to those of royal blood and the seemingly never-ending arguments about how to make the perfect bowl of soup.  What’s more, he’s doesn’t understand why Despereaux thinks unrequited love is the best thing since sliced croissants.

Fortunately for Desperadeaux, the New World beckons!  Following a harrowing boat ride across the Atlantic (suffice to say, scurvy was the best thing that happened on that voyage!), he makes his way West to New Mexico where he meets none other than Billy the Kid. The famous outlaw is a man of many and massive faults, but he recognizes in the diminutive varmint a talented gunslinger. He tells Desperadeaux, “You might have the littlest gun in the West, but you got the quickest draw!”  In no time, the rodent’s hardscrabble demeanor and deadly aim endears him to Billy and his gang.

            “Reckon you and me are gonna do some serious wreckin’ round here,” says Billy as they saddle up for a foray into town.

            “Oui, pardner. Oui!” murmurs Desperadeaux with a rueful grin.

The Much Awaited Sequel to Despereaux!

The Pleasure of Books

This spot on cartoon is from New Toons on the Blog. It's based on an insightful tweet by Hope Larson and features a cameo appearance by T.S. Eliot along with hundreds of selfless books who volunteered to serve as extras.

The Pleasure of Books

The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer's Block”

Apparently this was actually published in a refereed journal!

From: Grasping Reality with Both Hands

The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer's Block”

Bildungsromanmania!

Today the Demon pays his respect (well, sort of!) to the bildungsroman, the coming of age novel. Wikipedia describes it as "a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood."

Here are several, heretofore undocumented, variations of the bildungsroman:

The Rückwärts-Richtung-Bildungsroman. This is the "reverse direction" Bildunsroman. Examples include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or any novel featuring Merlin, who was reputed to age backwards through time.

The Ich-Will-Nicht-Erwachsen-Werden-Roman. This is the "I won’t grow up novel" and, of course, we're referring to Peter Pan.  Astute readers will likely complain this isn't a bildungsroman since the  protagonist doesn't demonstrate growth. This only proves that astute readers ought not waste their time perusing this blog!

The Déjà-vu-Bildungsroman. Think of the movie Groundhog Day where the protagonist, Bill Murray,  achieves growth only after living the same day over and over and over again.

The Roman-Gladiator-Bildungsroman.  These are stories of ancient Rome featuring young boys sent off to the ludus for gladiator training. This variation of the bildungsroman tends to be problematic as most protagonists do not live long enough to reach adulthood.

The Willy-Loman-Bildungsroman: This fall-from-grace variation was epitomized in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.  Technically, it's not a bildungsroman, but who cares, the phrase just rolls off the tongue!

Bildungsromanmania!

A Study in Contrasts: Aging, Atwood and Bradbury

How to describe an aging woman's body?  Here are two examples, starkly different, from two writers, each wonderful in their own way.

First, from Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye:

  

I think of Cordelia examining the growing pouches under her eyes… Gnarling has set in, the withering of the mouth; the outlines of dewlaps are beginning to be visible, down towards the chin…She drops the bath towel…looks over her shoulder, sees in the mirror the dog's-neck folds of skin above the waist, the buttocks drooping like wattles…

  

Next, from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine:

She sat down next to him on the swing in her nightgown, not slim the way girls get when they are not loved at seventeen, not fat the way women get when they are not loved at fifty, but absolutely right, a roundness, a firmness, the way women are at any age, he thought, when there is no question.

Hard to imagine a more stark contrast, eh? And that's the wonder of good writing, folks!

A Study in Contrasts: Aging, Atwood and Bradbury

A Grammar Girl Nightmare on Elm Street

The Demon is a fan of Grammar Girl and recommends her book, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.  To show his appreciation, the Demon offers this little homage:

Grammar Girl versus Freddy Krueger!

A Grammar Girl Nightmare on Elm Street

Haiku as Query Letter

Recently, I read a fascinating comment about the query letter: "...because it is short, it's like the haiku of writing. It has to convey a vivid and memorable impression with as few words as possible."

What a wonderful image! And that sparked an idea. I looked over several haiku by Bashō, the famed Japanese poet of the Edo era, and tried to imagine which author might have used which haiku for one of their query letters. Here goes!

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die

This feels like a Stephen King novel.


Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tidies her hair

Margaret Atwood


A weathered skeleton
in windy fields of memory,
piercing like a knife

The Lovely Bones by Alice Seybold


I would like to use
that scarecrow's tattered clothes
in this midnight frost

Used by Neil Gaiman if he ever decided to re-imagine The Wizard of Oz.

Haiku as Query Letter

Could I be a Genetic Enchanter?

Last night, I began reading Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Ah, it does me good to reunite with a favorite author from my youth! However, I do notice that with age I am more likely to read an author’s introduction. When I was a teen, I did not have the patience for introductions – it was dive into the novel, full speed ahead with the plot, onwards with characters development.

Happily, I found the following gem, my reward for taking the time to read Mr. Bradbury’s introduction:

I was amused and somewhat astonished at a critic a few years back who wrote an article analyzing Dandelion Wine plus the more realistic works of Sinclair Lewis, wondering how I could have been born and raised in Waukegan, which I renamed Green Town for my novel, and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards down below the town.

But, of course, I had noticed them and, genetic enchanter that I was, was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about.

Genetic Enchanter…oh gawd, I love that phrase! Could it be possible that I am one? Could it mean that I, in some tickle-my-fancy manner, bear the slightest of kinship to the likes of a Ray Bradbury?

Sigh!

Could I be a Genetic Enchanter?

Banana Moon

If you had to write a story to save your life, what would you write, where would your story begin?

Perhaps you’d find yourself beneath the desert sky one early evening, listening as young voices cry out, “banana moon!” There’s silver up above and children’s laughter floating in the air. With head bowed, you trace a broken heart in the sand.

The morning comes, the children dream of sand and silver and loving hearts, a plane ascends. Looking down you see, wandering amidst the mirage of bright lights and improbable fountains, those who have forgotten the magic of the desert. You close your eyes and listen for the sound of laughter; thirty minutes and one hundred and sixty miles later passes and you hear none.

Meanwhile, the man besides you, somber faced and grey-suited, is lost, but in a good way, as he reads Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. A flight attendant brings you coffee and you ask for two sugars – the first for the coffee, the second you pour upon your tray so you may trace a broken heart. The plane purrs and rattles, the heart disappears.

Four days’ mail crams the mailbox and the unpacked suitcase is left to fend for itself. You walk to the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet and scowl; the door is open so the mirror reflects the wall, not your face. Soon, forty-two red and green pills float in the toilet bowl. You urinate but the deadly little armada refuses to sink. There’s nothing else to do but flush and walk away.

If you had to write a story to save your life, what would you write? Perhaps you’d write of a seemingly ordinary man in a grey suit who had an ordinary job, ordinary friends and uneventful days. But once a month, about the time the banana moon comes, he remembers the magic of the desert. One those days, while everyone else still sleeps, he rises early to usher in the dawn with soft laughter. 

Later, when all are sleeping, he smiles as he remembers the sound of children’s voices.

Yes, on those days when the banana moon comes, he is the first to laugh and the last to smile.

Banana Moon