Lately I’ve been reading Tinkers by Paul Harding, which won the 2010 Pulitzer for fiction. It’s a lovely, lyrical novel, and plenty of words have been jumping out at me. This week we’ll look at three sentences. Watch for more Tinker vocab in weeks to come.
- Horologist: a person skilled in making time pieces
Now, the horologist looks upon an open-faced, fairy-book contraptions; gears lean to and fro like a lazy machine in a dream.
- Union suit: one-piece long underwear
- Somnolent: sleepy
He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband’s boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen starts, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas.
- Imbrication: state of being arranged in a pattern with overlapping edges, as with fish scales
- Ichthyic: relating to fish
Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally, to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes.
You can get the Vocab Builder every weekday by following me on Twitter.
I’ve been reading Tinkers on my Kindle. The best thing about the Kindle is I can highlight words and phrases without marring up the book (all those yellow highlights can get distracting after a while). Kindle stores my notes and highlights, which I can retrieve from one place. No more paging through an entire book for a half-remembered note! If you’re considering purchasing either Tinkers or a Kindle, please support this blog by clicking on the banner below.
Latest Tweets
Erin, would you recommend the wireless Kindle without 3G, or do you think the 3G is worth the extra cost?
As for Tinkers, those last two examples are some lo-o-o-ong sentences. Made me feel somnolent as I sit here in my union suit. I can see why you’ll be adding examples over the next few weeks. It’s not the kind of book you want to swallow in one gulp, is it?
I do like having the 3G wireless because no matter where you are, you can connect to the Net for free. I thought of it as paying for the connection up front and never again.
Tinkers definitely wasn’t a one-gulp, action-packed book. There were times when I wouldn’t pick it up to read because I knew I was too tired to focus. I reached for lighter reading instead. But it was well worth the time it took to read. It really was beautiful.
Tinkers was a good book–definitely not “light” reading though! I saw the length of it (it isn’t long) and thought it would be a quick read…not so much. It is beautifully crafted though.
And if you think those sentences are long, you should read this book. There’s a least one sentence that spread across a page and a half!
[...] few weeks ago, I looked at some words from Paul Harding’s Tinkers. Harding’d writing is lush and vibrant, offering vocabulary enthusiasts something worth [...]
[...] you’re a regular reader, you know that I’m enamored with Paul Harding’s Tinkers. The language and imagery are rich: And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is [...]
[...] is almost another character. If you missed the previous editions of this collection, check out Tinkering With Language and More Tinkers. Example sentences are taken from the [...]