I was stopped in my tracks today by this humble sentence about a character’s eyes from Jodi Picoult’s The Book of Two Ways:

 

“They made me think of the heart of a glacier, of how, even when you touch dry ice with your bare skin, you cannot let go even if you try.”(p.18)

 

Egyptian hieroglyphs

She’d already won me over at this stage with her depictions of Egyptian hieroglyphs and history and references to IndianaJones. What I love about this sentence is the sensory and emotional experience. I’m sick of reading she/he had green or grey eyes when the majority of people have brown, followed by blue (in certain cultural contexts). So blue eyes, check, while avoiding the cliche’s of a lake, the sky, etc. Double check! We instead get treated to ice reflecting the sky in its centre in a form of a glacier. Making me feel the character’s cold disinterest in me.

Word choice

Then she choses the word ‘dry’ reinforcing this lack of life, and yet ‘with your bare skin’ brings to mind the sensual. Exactly. The women is describing an ex-lover. Thus, being stuck to the ice (‘you cannot let go’) is more about tongue and lolly freeze. We are transported to a place of shivery recognition of the attraction she is describing. It wasn’t a mistake Picoult used ‘heart’ after all. She does not want to become unstuck from this man. As a reader, I assume at this point as I haven’t read further, the story will bring them into contact once more. No spoilers here. Combined, physical, emotional and narrative connections work together in one simple sentence. Doesn’t feel so simple after all now, does it?

 Continued reading …

Okay, excuse me, I have to go and read some more …

L’article Jodi Picoult. How a sentence can tell a story est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.

Got excited when I got my hands on this one. However, my first impression was disappointment. I almost stopped reading when an example of racism given was a lady picking up her purse after catching someone approaching from the corner of her eye. I’ve done that before, movement in my eye reminding me I should be paying attention to my purse to discover it’s my husband. I found it to be the only misplaced example in the whole book. Cause the rest of this book is breathtaking in terms of how the author frames three different stories: Nurse Ruth, a White supremacist and the nurse’s lawyer.

Now I understand that that moment of assumption, any assumption on both sides is the point the author was making. To know more, read it 😉

I don’t want to give anything away. I hope it’s enough to say the book is written well and held my attention throughout, once I got beyond the one example mentioned above. It’s also an important book for the topics it raises and asks of its readers. Surely a sign of great literature…. but what do you think?

L’article Small Great Things est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.