Grahame uses a lot of techniques that make me almost as intimidated as I was by F. freaking Scott Fitzgerald's excerpt from The Great Gatsby that I mentioned in the last post. Except WitW was meant to be read aloud to children, evident from the intrusive narrating; when the narrator of the story interrupts in first person in the middle of a third person book. This is part of the scene we read:
"Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn't really matter. (We know of course that he was wrong, and took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it would take too long to explain why.) He sat in his arm-chair at the head of the table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he did not seem surprised or shocked at anything."
The sentence in italics is the intrusive narration. I never knew what that was called before today, and I always wondered and thought it was a bit out of place. And now I realize! It's common in children's novels that are meant to be read aloud! The writing is obviously a bit above standard style, maybe even elevated, but kids process words different when hearing them, rather than seeing them. It makes sense.
Even in The Hobbit J.R.R Tolkien butts into his own stories sometimes (from what I remember), and I think it's more common in books published in from 1900-1940, at least from what I've read. Probably later books, too. But I don't think I've ever read a book published in the 90s or 2000s that has intrusive narrating.
So this whole intrusive narrating thing is fascinating to me, and I'm honestly not sure why. I don't think I'd ever do it in my own stories, but it's a good thing to know.
Anyway, back on the road I was originally going down. It's seems I took a detour. You're probably wondering why this post is called "Analogies," and I will tell you why, dear reader (Kate DiCamillo calls her readers this in the intrusive narrating in her book The Tale of Despereaux...Okay, I'm done now).
We do this thing in my creative writing class where we take turns bringing in a page of writing that we think is good writing, and we have to talk about why we think its good writing. Well, today, a friend of mine brought in an excerpt from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou (which I haven't read either...my have-to-read list is getting higher by the minute). It's the part where the narrator is describing Mrs. Bertha Flowers. We were talking about types of comparison-metaphors, similes, and analogies. My teacher was giving an example, and she said:
"Emma is to her pencil as a priest is to their cross. It's their everything, how they express themselves..."
or something like that. Anyway, I really liked it! I have to admit, I do my writing with all ten fingers on my Macbook Pro keyboard 95 percent of the time, but it's a nice way to describe my relationship with my pencil, which is a love relationship, if you must know. I love pens, mostly, but I do love pencils.
My teacher is the best. I only started taking the class at the beginning of the semester and I've already learned so much. Huzzah, my dear readers!
I'm sick and I tried to drink Emergen-C, but it tasted almost as bad as fermented orange juice. Have you ever had that? Of course I didn't knowingly or intentionally drink fermented fruit juice; all I know is that it was disgusting. And swallowing nighttime cold & flu relief soft gels felt like trying to swallow a freaking MARBLE, and I'm not sure if it's because my throat is sensitive and swollen, or they really are huge. I dunno. All I know is that I'm glad to be missing school tomorrow because I have a test in English and a quiz in Chemistry, both of which I can make up very easily. And besides, I need to catch up on a lot of stuff. Stuff meaning homework, basically. And Tumblr. Ha.
This has been a long blog post, it feels like. Mostly because I've been writing it for an hour while my immune system charges ahead to attack the Cold inside me. Sorry I'm being weird. I'll go now. Happy analogies, dear readers!
Here's some analogy humor for your daily appreciation and entertainment:
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