The Word Cloud

12 Comments

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  by stephenterry 7 months ago

  To be frank, JessL I find this sort of example a good reason to never, ever contemplate reading an overblown description with various tenses thrown in.
  
  It's certainly 'creative writing'... but bores me to death...
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  by Jess L 7 months ago

  A fair point ST. It's certainly putting me off. I've just come across another occurrence were the past tense would work better than what he's used and it really disrupts the flow. If it becomes too annoying I guess it'll be something to pick up on in my review. A lesson learned for my own writing, too!
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  by stephenterry 7 months ago

  Let's look at this sentence. Seven adjectives. One could say - but every one is working. And hand on heart, it's true. We do have a complete picture. I am impressed.
  
  "He looked over and watched her tuck back a stubborn fluttering wisp of half-gray hair from her sun-toughened little brown nut of a face"
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  by PaD 7 months ago

  Haven't read the book, but from what you've quoted, it looks like he's using the present tense to describe what the character is feeling, (give more immediacy), and the past tense to describe his actions.
  
  I could be wrong - see if he keeps doing it. But I agree, it's very distracting!
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  by Amarantha 7 months ago

  This reads okay to me Jess. If you look at your own earlier pararaph you will see "The problem has been pointed out to me before in the forum and I've read it commented ... " The 'has' is clearly in the past. I'm too long out of school now to explain all the past tenses with confidence but someone is sure to; maybe Tony, he's pretty up on his verbs. :-)
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  by Jess L 7 months ago

  You may be right PaD but I can't quite suss it out yet.
  Ama - Maybe it's because I've quoted those parts separately. It may take an overall reading to see my point. Or maybe I'm just picking up on something totally irrelevant!
  
  I get what you mean about the 'has' in my paragraph but it's contextual. You know how, by reading a sentence, you can pick up on what tense it's written in? Like how your mind knows which 'bear' you mean judging by what is written around it. I don't know, I think I'm just rambling now. For a writer I can be remarkably ineloquent. Either way, I'm not liking the way this is written and it's taking some getting used to.
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  by Malcolm 7 months ago

  Tense can be a slippery thing. The "has" could be in present tense ie. continues to have, or it might be something he did ie. he has a feeling (now gone) and as a consequence thinks something else.
  
  Like Amarantha, I can't remember the details clearly but I think its to do with past perfect tense and the past pluperfect. He might be mixing tenses but it would be two past tenses as opposed to past and present. it would need some context to decide clearly, I think.
  
  Better brains than mine will know...
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  by EmmaD 7 months ago

  I'm reading The English Patient, which is extremely slippery when it comes to tenses, but possibly the most astonishingly brilliant novel I've read in years. So I've given it the benefit of the doubt, and tried to work out the reasons for each tense when Ondaatje uses is. It's very, very interesting - past can be past (as in before) but also it's our solid, story-telling tense. Present can be the present moment of the story. But by extension it also has that floating-unanchored feeling that what's sometimes calle the Historic Present - present tense used for storytelling. Not sure I've got to the bottom of it yet. But it might help you to get at what he's doing by thinking that way.
  
  I should say that it's not astonishingly brilliant because he does such technically bold things - no doubt risking that many readers will be estranged because it's so disconcerting, or they're not experienced or willing enough to put in the work to get the most out of the book. IT's astonishingly brilliant because it's utterly compelling. The technical boldness is there purely so that he can tell the story better than if he did it a more ordinary way. Nothing clever-clever about it. Just a stunning book.
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  by AlanP 7 months ago

  I read the English Patient a few years ago. It's as Emma describes, but I do wonder if it is all less deliberate than that. It seems to me that tranches of it are stream of consciousness. He is just pouring what's in his head onto the page. He is definitely in the head of Kip and not in the head of most of the others. Did that affect how he imagined the story and, if he did just pour the first draft out of his head and onto the page, is that how it ended up.
  
  I will now brace myself for a bit of putting right on this one, but it is what I thought at the time.
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  by Barry Walsh 7 months ago

  Maybe just diving in and going with the flow is all that's needed, unless it's really stopping you from getting through it. I loved the 'Rabbit' books but fear this could be a particular favourite of my generation and not so wonderful today. As Emma and Alan suggest, the brilliant 'The English Patient' is worth squeezing in if you can find the time.
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  by Jess L 7 months ago

  I'll definitely stick it out. I can't leave a book unfinished, plus I have to do a review on it for my course. Like you say PK I'll just have to press on and get used to it. It's something different so, who knows, I may even learn to love it and incorporate it into my own writing... :)
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  by Amarantha 7 months ago

  I was still thinking about this after I logged off and remembered that your own bit I quoted is 'has been' which is fine while the one worrying you is simply 'has'. Quite a difference. Nevertheless it had seemed natural to me on first reading so I came back to re-read. It still 'feels' okay to me and perhaps PaD has put a finger on why: maybe it's because the present deals with a feeling which continues through the following actions. Makes it more immediate expressed that way?
  
  Not sure it's a valid use of the tenses but often such contrivances have a desired effect.