what I’m reading, discussed and reviewed, and other reading matters, “on the way”
Uncomfortably, I found 59 essays of the best films from the 1980’s a little daunting to digest right to the end, so I found a way of making sure I read the entire book to the last review. Glad I did.
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The Wind in the Willows. By Kenneth Grahame. Year: 1908. Genre: Classic Children’s. Synopsis: Follows the adventures of ‘clever’ Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, and close friends Ratty, Mole, and Badger down by the river bank (based on London’s River Thames), and the animals and humans met along the way, such as the ‘Wayfarer’, the train driver, and the washerwoman. Wonderful book, delightfully told, a masterpiece of children’s literature.
In “The Wind in the Willows”, a children’s book that’s considered a classic and that I am presently reading, there’s the main action and we find out later what was going on in parallel to that action in a conversational scene. The author chose to tell what happened in parallel in just one scene. I found this worked perfectly, in this case. So, the question I have, is why would an author choose one lot of action first and tell the reader what happened in parallel later on, in just one scene? I think the author must know how this choice would effect the flow of the story. It may flow better that way. By telling two stories at once in parallel may lesson the effectiveness of the story as a whole. You may lose the gist of the story. Parallel plot lines — where two stories are told in parallel at virtually the same time — are the exception and one uses it only for the purposes of telling the story more effectively, without losing the gist of the story.
There’s a surprising, kind of frightening word in “Wayfarer” which for me conjures up a supernaturally dark mystery, but my fears are unfounded, as it actually means someone who travels on foot. There’s a whole chapter devoted to Wayfarer in the “Wind in the Willows” which is what I have been reading today. Almost finished.
Words and phrases are keys to the arsenal of a writer, a vocabulary and how words are put together. One phrase I remember from my reading today, which sticks in my memory, is the phrase “holier-than-thou ideologies”. Very interesting.
