When Lenina first experienced Malpais, she acted sort of like I do when I'm outside for too long. She didn't like how things smelled, and she kept saying, "I don't like it. I don't like it" (109). The diction around that part set a very repulsive scene -- "dirt," "rubbish," "terrible," "awful," and "revoltingly viviparous," to name a few examples.
But then, the quote at the top of my post happened. Since the drums were mentioned so many times, I feel like they have to be a symbol for something. I'm not totally sure, but I think the drums symbolize the connection between the civilized people and the Indians. Lenina didn't find the drums queer, and they reminded her of the Solidarity Services (gahh, weird part). Both societies use drums in their, erm, unique rituals.
Since I've got seven sentences left to work with, I'm going to complain about the style of this chapter. One paragraph lasted from 113 to 116, and another one lasted from 119 to 122. Paragraphs that last three pages are not cool! The first one was about the sacrifice ritual, and the second one was about Linda's hysteria. I understand that the sentences that are in these two paragraphs go together, but seriously, why not indent something here and there? I generally think too much when I read causing me to read slower, and dinosaur paragraphs do not help. That's a new literary term, by the way -- dinosaur paragraph: an unnecessarily lengthy paragraph that contributes to the writer's point by causing the reader to throw the book at the wall.
Nothing's worse than "dinosaur paragraphs."
ReplyDeleteI prefer my pages to have lots of one liner dialogues, or, like chapter three with big spaces after the paragraphs, but that was just a confusing chapter so forget I said that.
Haha! Dinosaur paragraphs should be added to the list.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I think I could follow the dinosaur paragraphs more easily than I could chapter three. That was just a bad experience overall.
ReplyDeleteI zoned out approximately twelve times in that first dinosaur paragraph, right around the place where it was just becoming a lengthy paragraph, and then after that I looked to see how long it was and decided that I was just going to do it, and then I read it, and the second one was okay too after that, but it was... challenging.
ReplyDeleteI think you should trademark the phrase dinosaur paragraph. It is an incredibly accurate way to describe those paragraphs that take fifteen minutes to read because you keep losing focus.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I mean, really -- are they necessary? Their rhetorical effect is (and I'm quoting from the official definition, here) "causing the reader to throw the book at the wall."
ReplyDelete