The ORIGINAL 1000+ Posts Club

[southendmd]

Just needed to say that I love this week´s banner

Thanks, Monika.  A little Jack doesn't hurt.

[Brown Eyes]

Bones and clouds are so dissimilar.

She's brave about incorporating way-out-there images and metaphors. Since when does a mountain boil, with demonic energy no less?

Whenever I've tried something the least bit offbeat like that, my editors have sternly deleted it and switched it to something ordinary and predictable: "boneless" to "cloudless" or whatever. Annie either makes it work ... or is so brazen that the editors figure she must know what she's doing.

I completely agree that clouds and bones are very different, and with the sentiment that Proulx's metaphors are bold.  At the same time, though as soon as you read something like "boneless blue" and if you're given the little push that she's talking about the sky... somehow the bones / clouds thing makes sense... or it doesn't take much to begin to think of it as having its own peculiar logic.  

I feel the same way about the boiling mountain idea... somehow I kind of feel like I know what she means even though it doesn't make logical sense.  I suppose that's what I mean about poetic aspect that I sense in her language.

[Ellemeno]

She's brave about incorporating way-out-there images and metaphors. Since when does a mountain boil, with demonic energy no less?

Whenever I've tried something the least bit offbeat like that, my editors have sternly deleted it and switched it to something ordinary and predictable: "boneless" to "cloudless" or whatever. Annie either makes it work ... or is so brazen that the editors figure she must know what she's doing.

'Course one's fiction and the other's journalism.  Which I know you know.  Now I'm thinking about cloudless chicken breasts.

[Penthesilea]

At the same time, though as soon as you read something like "boneless blue" and if you're given the little push that she's talking about the sky... somehow the bones / clouds thing makes sense...

Agreed. Even to me as a foreign speaker, it was immediately clear what she's talking about and made absolute sense when I read the story for the first time. I know I liked that phrase instantly.

I feel the same way about the boiling mountain idea... somehow I kind of feel like I know what she means even though it doesn't make logical sense.  I suppose that's what I mean about poetic aspect that I sense in her language.

I think the mountain boiling with demonic energy is a bit more far off, a bit more into the field of fantasy. But maybe that's just me, maybe I have too much of it (fantasy, that is). I can easily see the mountain boiling, bubbling and being wobbly - just like a highly piled up jelly pudding, when you shake the plate. But you have to picture it in slow motion of course.
As if the mountain were rearing up (again: in slow-mo) like a horse (or bull), to shake off the rider; the mountain was rearing up to shake off the two intruders who had lived in its paradise long enough.

[Jeff Wrangler]

She's brave about incorporating way-out-there images and metaphors. Since when does a mountain boil, with demonic energy no less?

Whenever I've tried something the least bit offbeat like that, my editors have sternly deleted it and switched it to something ordinary and predictable: "boneless" to "cloudless" or whatever. Annie either makes it work ... or is so brazen that the editors figure she must know what she's doing.

Pity the fool editor who would try to make her change it. ...

[Jeff Wrangler]

A little Jack doesn't hurt.

Especially with Coke or ginger ale. ...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I think the mountain boiling with demonic energy is a bit more far off, a bit more into the field of fantasy. But maybe that's just me, maybe I have too much of it (fantasy, that is). I can easily see the mountain boiling, bubbling and being wobbly - just like a highly piled up jelly pudding, when you shake the plate. But you have to picture it in slow motion of course.
As if the mountain were rearing up (again: in slow-mo) like a horse (or bull), to shake off the rider; the mountain was rearing up to shake off the two intruders who had lived in its paradise long enough.

I just think of a low rumbling noise, like the sound when a pan of water first comes to boil.

[serious crayons]

'Course one's fiction and the other's journalism. 

True, though sometimes they do overlap. But not, for the record, the way some people might think.

[Jeff Wrangler]

True, though sometimes they do overlap. But not, for the record, the way some people might think.

And sometimes they overlap exactly the way some people might think! 

But that's generally found out in the end. 

[serious crayons]

And sometimes they overlap exactly the way some people might think! 

But that's generally found out in the end. 

That's true. They sure overlapped for Stephen Glass, Jason Blair and Janet whatsername, the woman who wrote about the 10-year-old crack addict -- people knowingly, deliberately writing fiction and calling it journalism.

But the contention that much of mainstream journalism is fictional is patently false. Even what Fox News presents isn't fiction, it's slanted facts.

They do overlap when journalism uses the techniques of fiction -- when somebody writing journalism refers to a boneless blue sky, for instance. If the sky really was boneless (or cloudless), it's not fiction.