As I've said in earlier posts, I think that Annie Proulx's ear for dialogue and her ability to describe the natural world and the appearance of her characters in her novel That Old Ace in the Hole is amazing. I found the names she gave her characters disconcerting and unsettling. While I am willing to trust her descriptions of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle and willing to go along with her Candide-like main character as he looks for a place to site an agribusiness hog farm, almost every time she named a new character, my willing suspension of disbelief popped. Here's what I'm talking about:
Millrace Giddins...Ribeye Cluke...Tambourine Bapp...Wayne Redpoll...Marisa Berdstraw...Kevin Alk...Orlando Bunnel...Beryl Schwarm...High Dough...Dolly Cleat...Rohama Bustard...Jason Shrub...Tazzy Keister...Advance Slauter...Harry Howdiboy...LaVon Fronk...Rope Butt...Wally Ooly...Freda Beautyrooms...Parch Wilpin...Cy Frease...Charles Grapewine...Methiel Huff.
For all I know, Proulx paged through panhandle phone books, chose genuine first and second names, and then shuffled them to come up with these. My problem is that they don't sound real. I probably would have ridden along with her if she'd only used a few to establish a period and a place. When I name a character, I try to suggest a personality, social or ethnic background, geography, attitude, or events that occurred when the character was born. "Parch Wilpin" sounds to me like someone from Texas. "Ribeye Cluke," "Rope Butt," and "Freda Beautyrooms" do not sound like anything except random words mashed together.
Showing posts with label Annie Proulx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Annie Proulx. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Annie Proulx's descriptive powers
I am routinely dazzled by an author's ability to describe the physical world--the landscape and people. It is much easier to write about abstractions—ideas, thoughts, theories—than it is to paint a word picture, or at least I find it so. Which is why I am blown away by a paragraph like the following, from the first page of That Old Ace in the Hole:
"Gradually the ancient thrill of moving against the horizon into the great yellow distance heated him, for even fenced and cut with roads the overwhelming presence of grassland persisted, though nothing of the original prairie remained. It was all flat expanse and wide sky. Two coyotes looking for afterbirths trotted through a pasture to the east, moving through the fluid grass, the sun backlighting their fur in such a way that they appeared to have silver linings. Irrigated circles of winter wheat, dotted with stocker calves, grew on land as level as a runway. In other fields tractors lashed tails of dust. He noticed the habit of slower drivers to pull into the breakdown lane--here called the 'courtesy lane'--and wave him on."
We see the land, get a sense of the character's feeling about the land through what he observes, and learn something about the people on the land.
Proulx can also vividly show us a character:
"Sheriff Hugh Dough was forty years old, a small man, five feet five, 130 pounds, riddled with tics and bad habits, but nonetheless a true boss-hog sheriff. He had a sharp Aztec nose, fluffy black hair ands black eyes like those in a taxidermist's drawer. A line of rough pimples ran from the corner of his funnel mouth to his ear. His uniform was a leather jacket and a black string tie. He had been a bed wetter all his life and no longer cared that he couldn't stop. There was a rubber sheet on the bed and a washing machine in the adjacent bathroom. He never married because the thought of explaining the situation was unbearable. He was an obsessive nail biter. He counted everything, courthouse steps, telephone poles, buttons on felons' shirts, the specks of pepper on his morning eggs, the number of seconds it took to empty his bladder (when awake)." (page 49)
Every detail helps us see and understand something about this sheriff. We don't understand everything because we can never understand everything about another person. Heck, we don't understand everything about ourselves. But a bed-wetting sheriff who cannot marry because of it.... Wow.
"Gradually the ancient thrill of moving against the horizon into the great yellow distance heated him, for even fenced and cut with roads the overwhelming presence of grassland persisted, though nothing of the original prairie remained. It was all flat expanse and wide sky. Two coyotes looking for afterbirths trotted through a pasture to the east, moving through the fluid grass, the sun backlighting their fur in such a way that they appeared to have silver linings. Irrigated circles of winter wheat, dotted with stocker calves, grew on land as level as a runway. In other fields tractors lashed tails of dust. He noticed the habit of slower drivers to pull into the breakdown lane--here called the 'courtesy lane'--and wave him on."
We see the land, get a sense of the character's feeling about the land through what he observes, and learn something about the people on the land.
Proulx can also vividly show us a character:
"Sheriff Hugh Dough was forty years old, a small man, five feet five, 130 pounds, riddled with tics and bad habits, but nonetheless a true boss-hog sheriff. He had a sharp Aztec nose, fluffy black hair ands black eyes like those in a taxidermist's drawer. A line of rough pimples ran from the corner of his funnel mouth to his ear. His uniform was a leather jacket and a black string tie. He had been a bed wetter all his life and no longer cared that he couldn't stop. There was a rubber sheet on the bed and a washing machine in the adjacent bathroom. He never married because the thought of explaining the situation was unbearable. He was an obsessive nail biter. He counted everything, courthouse steps, telephone poles, buttons on felons' shirts, the specks of pepper on his morning eggs, the number of seconds it took to empty his bladder (when awake)." (page 49)
Every detail helps us see and understand something about this sheriff. We don't understand everything because we can never understand everything about another person. Heck, we don't understand everything about ourselves. But a bed-wetting sheriff who cannot marry because of it.... Wow.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Annie Proulx's dialogue
I've just finished That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx. The novel is set in the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles in present day, and Proulx does two things that I think are wonderful and one thing I find off-putting. Let me talk about one of the things I like in this post, and I'll discuss the others later.
Proulx is a marvel in her ability to write dialogue that sounds like dialect without resorting to phonetic spelling. Here, taken at random, is an example (actually it's taken from page 132):
"Jesus... That's a little harsh, weld a man's gates. Could be he don't have no money. I hear their place is for sale. Anyway, when I was out there it was hot enough to loosen the bristles on a wild hog and Mrs. Wilcox gave me a glass a cold buttermilk. Best thing I ever drank. So I don't want to give them trouble."
I take it back on the phonetic spelling. She does use "a" for "of" and "awl" for "oil" and "Amarilla" for "Amarillo," but she uses it so lightly it does not become a distraction--or did not for me. One more example, a woman talking about another character on page 179:
"He was. Vain as a peacock. Wrote poetry too. Horse poetry and stuff about sunsets. Made your skin crawl to listen to him recite. He had a voice like a woman. They say a horse kicked him the Adam's apple when he was a boy. Some say the kick was lower down."
Proulx is a marvel in her ability to write dialogue that sounds like dialect without resorting to phonetic spelling. Here, taken at random, is an example (actually it's taken from page 132):
"Jesus... That's a little harsh, weld a man's gates. Could be he don't have no money. I hear their place is for sale. Anyway, when I was out there it was hot enough to loosen the bristles on a wild hog and Mrs. Wilcox gave me a glass a cold buttermilk. Best thing I ever drank. So I don't want to give them trouble."
I take it back on the phonetic spelling. She does use "a" for "of" and "awl" for "oil" and "Amarilla" for "Amarillo," but she uses it so lightly it does not become a distraction--or did not for me. One more example, a woman talking about another character on page 179:
"He was. Vain as a peacock. Wrote poetry too. Horse poetry and stuff about sunsets. Made your skin crawl to listen to him recite. He had a voice like a woman. They say a horse kicked him the Adam's apple when he was a boy. Some say the kick was lower down."
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