how to revise a sentence #5
At the beginning of Chapter Ten of Madeline Miller’s
CirceCirce (2018)
by Madeline Miller
I can see why my wife Z loves this book. It’s well written and rich with themes of individuality and motherhood, of womanhood and misogyny, of friendship and romance, of pride and shame, of love and cruelty. For most the time I spent reading this book I thought it a hodgepodge of tales until the final chapters when Miller brought the story to a sustained climax and completed Circe’s character arc elegantly and to great catharsis. Reading this work of Miller’s you appreciate her well earned knowledge not just of Ancient Greek mythology but also of the Heraclean efforts women of all ages have undertaken to remain whole and true despite the forces that threaten to tear them apart. This is as much a book about Titans and Olympians as it is about the difficulties of being a person of integrity. Integrity not in the abstract terms of flaw and virtue but in the bloody, scarring, fleshbinding terms of human experience.
, the protagonist arrives in Crete, the island that her domineering sister rules oppressively. Upon docking at the bustling city port, Circe is told to make her way up to the palace immediately. She narrates:
Before us, the huge limestone stairs wavered in the heat. Men streamed past us, servants and nobles alike, their shoulders sun-darkened and bare. Above, the palace of mighty Knossos glowed on its hill like a hive. We climbed. I heard Daedalus’ breaths behind me and Polydamas’ in front. The steps were worn smooth from years of endless hurrying feet.
With that last image, the author culminates her depiction of this new context. She manages to do a lot with a sentence of modest size:
The steps were worn smooth from years of endless hurrying feet.
Though she says little about the physical appearance of the staircase, she conjures a vivid image of it by stirring our imagination about the history and nature of the kingdom that it serves. It is a kingdom whose subjects have long toiled in relentless heat to shuttle riches up from the docks to the throne. It’s an evocative image delivered concisely.
But I have one problem with it – the execution. I think the phrasing needed more iteration. The last bit in particular – endless hurrying feet – is a somewhat clunky, disappointing resolution.
It was hard to pinpoint what bothered me about it. At first I thought it was the word endless. I figured I’d replace it with ceaseless. But by the time I’d found a phrasing I preferred, it didn’t matter much which of those two words was used.
One thing that bothers me is the mushy -ing form of hurry. Another is the awkward way endless and hurrying get in each other’s way modifying feet. My instinct is to break up this awkward trio and to pick a form of hurry that’s more pleasing to say and hear, like hurried or hurry itself.
Here’s a rephrasing that conserves Miller’s idea and that I think improves the sentence that contains it:
Years of endless hurry up and down the steps had worn them smooth.
This rephrasing has a few subtle effects. By adding up and down it gives suitable motion to the image, highlighting the endless hurry of the kingdom’s subjects. And by flipping the order of elements – history first, then present – it refocuses the sentence ultimately on the present, where the action is happening. But if there is a major improvement I think it is a rhythmic one. Reading the two versions one after the other shows how different they are in that respect:
The steps were worn smooth from years of endless hurrying feet.
Years of endless hurry up and down the steps had worn them smooth.
The phrasing of were worn smooth and endless hurrying feet stunt the flow of the original sentence. And perhaps this was an intentional choice by Miller. In the end, it’s a matter of taste and aesthetic affinity. But I prefer the regular rhythmic flow of my sentence (which I believe is in Trochaic meter).
Using Scansion notation, where a stressed syllable is marked with / and an unstressed one with x:
x \ x \ \ x \ x \ x \ x x \
The steps were worn smooth from years of endless hurrying feet.
The rhythm of were worn smooth is ambiguous to me. Regardless, the sentence doesn’t flow with the same pattern throughout. On the other hand, this one does:
\ x \ x \ x \ x \ x \ x \ x \
Years of endless hurry up and down the steps had worn them smooth.
As I progress into the novel, I notice more sentences with opportunity for rhythmic tweaking.
Here’s one that gathers pace, then slows over a speedbump, then speeds back up immediately.
A door that did not open at his knock was a novelty in its own right, and a kind of relief as well.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
itself
A door that did not open at his knock was a novelty itself, and a kind of relief as well.
Swapping in its own right with itself smooths over the hitch while maintaining the meaning, although it introduces a bit of rhyminess (with as well) that makes me hesitate. Too sing-songy?
Moving on. Here’s a sentence missing a beat.
I fear I have robbed them not only of their youth but their age as well.
^^^^^^ ^
I've of
x \ x \ x \ x \ x \
I fear I've robbed them not only of their youth but of their age as well.
It’s clear to me that adding of improves the sentence. But why? Is it because it rounds out the parallelism in of their youth and of their age? I don’t think so. Here’s another sentence from the book that also avoids repeating the preposition but sounds perfect:
How an axe might feel in wood instead of flesh.
Inserting an in before flesh to mimic in wood would be a blunder.
How an axe might feel in wood instead of in flesh.
The sentence strides gracefully to its finish and at the last moment we shove a hurdle in its path.
So, it’s clear the problem was one of cadence, not of symmetry. Returning to our edit:
I fear I have robbed them not only of their youth but their age as well.
^^^^^^ ^
I've of
x \ x \ x \ x \ x \
I fear I've robbed them not only of their youth but of their age as well.
Compressing I have to I’ve is an optional tweak to help the sentence start off on a steady beat. But it comes at the cost of slightly undercutting the graveness in the speaker’s tone. For that reason, it also makes sense to preserve the more formal I have in favor of the more casual I’ve.
By contrast, in the following sentence, replacing he had with he’d is an easier decision because it mirrors the opening He’d as well as tightening the rhythm:
He'd told me once that if he had brought the bow, he would have been the best archer in both armies.
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
he'd either army.
x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / / x x \ x \ x
He'd told me once that if he'd brought the bow, he would have been the best archer in either army.
It’s hard to nail down what it is about in either army that flows better than in both armies. Maybe because it’s easier to say? Consonants leading into vowels leading into consonants? Or maybe it’s the additional syllable again leveling out the rhythm.
In the revised sentence, there remains a rhythmic wrinkle in archer, which flips the order of beats for two syllables.
Strong (/) then weak (x) rather than weak followed by strong.
It’s not obvious that this is a problem.
Arguably, because the best archer is the climax of the sentence, the place where the parts coalesce into meaning, it makes sense there to slow the reader down.
(Editing my previous sentence, I changed makes sense to slow the reader down there to makes sense there to slow the reader down, hoisting up there to give the phrase a more interesting shape and sound without corrupting its meaning. There’s a threeshot pah pah pah rhythm to makes sense there that then unwinds nicely in the three iambs that follow it.)
Ultimately, rhythm is not a good unto itself, but a technical tool at the writer’s disposal. It all depends on the effect the writer aims to create and how rhythm might contribute to it. The point is not to apply it indiscriminately, but to wield it judisciously. No better way than developing close acquaintance with it. Hence the exercise.