Every now and again I run across something so beautifully written that I just want to share it and celebrate it. This is one of those times. It’s by Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after. –Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard rocks! Have you run across anything lately that is beautifully written? Something that makes you stop and say, “wow”? If so, I hope you’ll share it with us in the comments section. In the meantime, hug a writer today!
P.S. I am an ex-shrink who writes novels. Check out my books here.
P. P. S. Check out The Secret Sense of Wildflower “…astute observations and wonderfully turned phrases, with nary a cliche to be found. She could be an adolescent Scout Finch…A quietly powerful story, at times harrowing but ultimately a joy to read.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This doesn’t have a whole lot of “imagery” but I still love it – and it has to do with books. 😉
“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.â€
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Does “Fifty Shades of Grey” count?
Seriously, just about anything in the novel Netherland by Joseph O’Neill qualifies in my book, though I don’t have the book handy to type in any passage in particular.
And Deborah Eisenberg writes beautiful prose, though it’s not purple prose. Often very sparse, but beautiful.
Hi Amy,
I love the quote you shared by Anne Lamott. We owe so much to good books. Thanks for sharing it!
And John, please educate me. What is “purple prose”? And is this a bad thing in your view?
“Purple prose” is very ornate or flowery or overdone. “It was a dark and stormy night,” etc. I’m impressed by someone who can say something with few words, but bang, they’re the right words. No other words will do. Boy, that’s hard.
I mean, can you think of a better opening sentence in a book than “Call Me Ishmael”? I’ve also always loved the opening sentence to William Kennedy’s Ironweed, which I haven’t read since college but I can revisit on Amazon’s page: “Riding up the winding road of St. Agnes Cemetery in the back of the rattling old truck, Francis Phelan became aware that the dead, even more than the living, settled down in neighborhoods.” I think I stopped right there and just read the sentence over and over for about five minutes before continuing on, light-headed. To write like that!