December 1st, 2010
I don’t know how to label that ingredient. I do know that I’ve read two books recently that had stellar plots and pitch-perfect prose that didn’t have it, or at least were missing it in parts. I think it’s an emotional resonance somehow bound into the prose, and I’d love to discuss that, which is why I’m making this post.
( Slight spoiler alert )
"Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone." (The High King)
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is. (East of Eden)