"One day, the writer would recognize the near simultaneity of connected but dissimilar momentous events - these are what move a story forward - but at the moment Danny lost consciousness in Carmella's sweet-smelling arms, the exhausted boy had merely been thinking: How coincidental is this? (He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.)" - from Last Night in Twisted River
John Irving wrote that, a writer who once wrote my favorite book (A Prayer for Owen Meany). A writer who has said something to the effect of, I don't write well, but I rewrite well. Makes me wonder what the first draft looked like.
Other flinch-worthy moments include writing Italian accents like they were written for 60's pizza commercials: "Say-a no more, Dominic - we don't-a need to know why, or who you're running from!" and awkward race distinctions like this (contrasting an Italian with a Native American): "Her olive-brown skin was not unlike Jane's reddish-brown coloring; her slightly flattened nose and broad cheekbones were the same, as were her dark-brown eyes - like Jane's, Carmella's eyes were almost as black as her hair." Reddish-brown coloring? Really? 'Cause she's an injun?
Really? Really, John Irving? I'm still going to finish it. It's still John Irving.
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4 comments:
If it was the first sentence, we could enter it in the Bulwer Lytton contest.
Yes! Except the Bulwer-Lytton contest winners usually have a beginning, middle and end. This one has a beginning, end, middle, another beginning, another end, and an aside. Or something.
I guess even good writers come up with some clunkers. What's surprising is that Irving's editor didn't tell him he ought to re-work the sentence. But maybe the editor thought, well he's John freaking Irving and who am I tell to him anything.
Dan, his editor may have just been glad there were no semicolons in it.
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