Opening Paragraph
The opening paragraph of the novel really sets the stage for the stylistic use of imagery throughout the text. This paragraph is emblematic of much of the presentation of content in the text in that imagery disconnected from context is a fundamental element of the author’s conveyance of information. Read it and then read it again a second time. Now explain exactly what it is supposed to mean. This will process can be applied throughout:
“Paris hints of sacrifice. But here we deal with that large dusty facet known to indulgent and congruous kind: it is in its capacity of delicious inn and majestic Baedeker, where western Venuses twang its responsive streets and hush to soft growl before its statues, that it is seen. It is not across its Thébaïde that the unscrupulous heroes chase each other’s shadows: they are largely ignorant of all but their restless personal lives.”
Character Description
Even to the extent of simply describing character, the use of language is dependent upon a loftier sort of imagery than the typical simplistic declarative sentences that typify this element of fiction. This use of imagery for this purpose in this way is perfectly congruent:
“The picture of Otto as universal papa was the last straw, this misdirected and disordered animal capacity made him into a vast Magog of Carnival, an antediluvian puppet of fecundity for his compatriots. When he appeared that night everybody turned towards his historic figure with cries of welcome…their laughter struck him through his paper, he was unstrung enough to respond with visible annoyance. He frowned and puckered up his spectacled eyes, and two flushed lines descended from his brows to his jaw.”
Thick and Dense
The author is no minimalist. He is not the type of writer who spews forth a thousand words without conscious thought and then goes back to spend two days carving the forest of verbiage into a single perfect tree on a hill. His preference for imagery is thick and robust and covers the scene like wall to wall carpeting supplying a lush foundation beneath bare feet:
“All the repulsion of her being, in a raw indecent heat, seemed turned into this tearful sonority, pumped up in spasms and hissing on her lips as she spat out the usual epithets for the occasion…The appetite of hatred spat and gobbled while it lasted. Her attitude was reminiscent of the way people are seen to stand, bent awkwardly forward, neck craned out, slowly wiping the dirt off their clothes, or spitting out the remains of their polluted drink, cursing the person who has victimized them”
How to Change a Business
Ever wonder how a place of business that started out as one thing ever managed to transform into something quite different in terms of his personality? Like how a nice little affordable diner became a snooty overprice restaurant serving dishes barely recognizable as food? Another bit of full-bodied imagery supplies one theory on how this phenomenon takes place:
“The Restaurant Vallet…had been originally a clean tranquil little creamery, consisting of a small shop a few feet either way. Then one after another its customers had lost their reserve…perpetual scenes of unbridled voracity, semesters of compliance with the most brutal appetites of man, gradually brought about a change in its character; it became frankly a place where the most full-blooded palate might be satisfied..the small business had burrowed backwards into the ramshackle house: bursting through walls and partitions, flinging down doors, it discovered many dingy rooms in the interior that it hurriedly packed with serried cohorts of eaters.”
