I’m reading your post carefully first for what you say and then trying to learn from how you say it. So when I say I don’t understand the colon at the end of the sentence “Which takes me back to my point:” I’m sincerely asking not running off to find my pencil in glee! Is that a typo? I’ve never seen a colon used at the end of a paragraph. I’m not sure I’m ready for Waugh yet but I’ll put him on my to read list although admittedly it’s already longer than I think I can read in my remaining possible lifetime.
You are kind to read carefully and even kinder to let me know! Thank you.
As to the colon: either it is a typo or else I decided that the purpose of the colon is more important than the conventions about how we use them. If I am so great a writer that I can determine fashions rather than follow them, it is the latter. If I am a mediocre writer who screwed up, it is the former.
You can decide. ; )
You are ready for Waugh, but I've never made a read list per se, so I don't know how to think about that aspect. It would do to me what it seems to have done to you, which is to remind you that you are mortal and books are not. I read with a sense of calm desperation, grateful that I can read at all and grief stricken over the vast multitude of good and great books I'll never read. To make it worse, I hate reading books only once. I feel like that is playing with reading (which I do like to do too).
But I'm like that about food too. Well, about the vast multitude of good food that I'll never get to eat; not so much about only eating things once....
But Waugh is the best English stylist of the 20th century.
Have you read Brideshead Revisited? It's a different sort of book altogether from Men At Arms and I like it even better. You might want to start there because it is more famous and you'd likely find it much easier to chat with people about it. Also, in Brideshead Waugh wrote the single greatest sentence of the 20th century, but I won't tell you what it is because out of context even a pearl is nothing special.
Oh dear I have not read Brideshead but I may have to throw my 2025 reading plan to the wind already if it contains the greatest sentence written in the 20th century! That includes George Orwell! Ernest Hemingway! Harper Lee! C.S. Lewis! G.K. Chesterton! J.R.R. Tolkien! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn! My strength has never been in sticking to plans so why start now?
I’m reading your post carefully first for what you say and then trying to learn from how you say it. So when I say I don’t understand the colon at the end of the sentence “Which takes me back to my point:” I’m sincerely asking not running off to find my pencil in glee! Is that a typo? I’ve never seen a colon used at the end of a paragraph. I’m not sure I’m ready for Waugh yet but I’ll put him on my to read list although admittedly it’s already longer than I think I can read in my remaining possible lifetime.
You are kind to read carefully and even kinder to let me know! Thank you.
As to the colon: either it is a typo or else I decided that the purpose of the colon is more important than the conventions about how we use them. If I am so great a writer that I can determine fashions rather than follow them, it is the latter. If I am a mediocre writer who screwed up, it is the former.
You can decide. ; )
You are ready for Waugh, but I've never made a read list per se, so I don't know how to think about that aspect. It would do to me what it seems to have done to you, which is to remind you that you are mortal and books are not. I read with a sense of calm desperation, grateful that I can read at all and grief stricken over the vast multitude of good and great books I'll never read. To make it worse, I hate reading books only once. I feel like that is playing with reading (which I do like to do too).
But I'm like that about food too. Well, about the vast multitude of good food that I'll never get to eat; not so much about only eating things once....
But Waugh is the best English stylist of the 20th century.
Have you read Brideshead Revisited? It's a different sort of book altogether from Men At Arms and I like it even better. You might want to start there because it is more famous and you'd likely find it much easier to chat with people about it. Also, in Brideshead Waugh wrote the single greatest sentence of the 20th century, but I won't tell you what it is because out of context even a pearl is nothing special.
Oh dear I have not read Brideshead but I may have to throw my 2025 reading plan to the wind already if it contains the greatest sentence written in the 20th century! That includes George Orwell! Ernest Hemingway! Harper Lee! C.S. Lewis! G.K. Chesterton! J.R.R. Tolkien! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn! My strength has never been in sticking to plans so why start now?
Convinced.
Just ordered.
Looking forward to the read.