Here is a selection from Manhattan Transfer:
"The light of the sunset flamed in the windows of
factories…"
"…sun that glinted in squares on the upper windows of
houses…"
"…sheets of reflected light off windows, oblong glints
off delivery wagons…"
"…flicker off the light-beaded windows."
"…through the dusty pane where the sun gave a tiny
glitter to the dust…"
"Rosy twilight….glittered in brass and nickel, on buttons,
in people's eyes."
"The light of a zinc sky catches brightedged glints off
glasses, silverware…"
"Across the zinc water…building shimmered up the rosy
morning…"
"The downtown express passed clattering in yellow
light…"
"…rifts of light…mark off the glistening pavement."
"…pointing at him with the latchkey that caught the light of
the streetlamp."
"The bright searing bud of light swells in the center of
the ceiling, sprays razorsharp nickel, enamel, a dazzling
sharp case of sharp instruments."
"…angular glitter of glass, enamel and nickel…"
"The light of the mirror was reflected silvery…"
"A mildewed scrap of moon…made tinfoil of a bit of
broken glass…"
"Times Square was full of juggled colored lights,
crisscrossed corrugations of glare…"
"The cab turns sharp into a square glowering with
sunlight…"
"Glasses rise and tip glinting…."
"On the ceiling she can see the changing glow of
electric signs…"
"…grazing her with sharpcutting glints…"
Prose writers can learn from these examples. A striking image or
idea or metaphor loses its impact if repeated too many times. And,
as this case makes clear, even a well-known author can be guilty of
this mistake.
Ted Gioia is the author of eight books. His most recent is The Jazz
Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, published by Oxford University Press.
Almost every author relies on certain recurring
stylistic devices and flourishes, but when they are
overused they take on the appearance of an
involuntary verbal tic. An unpleasant obsessive
quality emerges that undermines the intensity of
the usage.
Here are examples from John Dos Passos's 1925
novel Manhattan Transfer. Every few pages, Dos Passos
attempts to temper the gritty realism of his novel with some
'fine descriptive prose'. For Dos Passos, this invariably means a
reference to reflected light. But he doesn't know when to quit, and
long before the midpoint of the novel, this image turns stale. Sad to
say, even light loses its luster.
stylistic devices and flourishes, but when they are
overused they take on the appearance of an
involuntary verbal tic. An unpleasant obsessive
quality emerges that undermines the intensity of
the usage.
Here are examples from John Dos Passos's 1925
novel Manhattan Transfer. Every few pages, Dos Passos
attempts to temper the gritty realism of his novel with some
'fine descriptive prose'. For Dos Passos, this invariably means a
reference to reflected light. But he doesn't know when to quit, and
long before the midpoint of the novel, this image turns stale. Sad to
say, even light loses its luster.
Anatomy of an Author's Tic:
Dos Passos & Reflected Light
By Ted Gioia
Dos Passos & Reflected Light
By Ted Gioia
a website devoted to radical,
unconventional and experimental
fiction with a particular focus on the
rise of modernism and its aftermath.
unconventional and experimental
fiction with a particular focus on the
rise of modernism and its aftermath.
Selected Essays by Ted Gioia
available on the Internet
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
The Adventurer's Guide to Finnegans Wake
Has Music Criticism Turned Into Lifestyle
Reporting?
The New Revolt of the Masses
The Music of the Tango
The Rise of the Fragmented Novel
The Year of Magical Reading
The Weirdest 1960s Novel of Them All
The 8 Memes of the Postmodern Mystery
The Many Lives of James Joyce
Why the Fuss About Jonathan Franzen?
A Conversation About Jazz with Ted Gioia
The Making of Ulysses
The Bumbling Shostakovich
The 100 Best Recordings of 2013
The 100 Best Recordings of 2012
The 100 Best Recordings of 2011
Franco: The James Brown of Africa
How Alice Got to Wonderland
Five Essays on John Fowles
The King of Western Swing
Post Cool
The Letter That Changed Modern Lit
So it Goes: The Unconventional Sci-Fi of
Kurt Vonnegut
Twelve Essential Tango Recordings
Alan Lomax and the FBI
Robert Musil and The Man Without
Qualities
A History of Cool Jazz in 100 Tracks
William Gaddis's Eight Rules of Unruly
Dialogue
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Fix-Up Artist: The Chaotic SF of A.E. van
Vogt
William Burroughs, Abstinence Teacher
Jazz Vocals in the New Millennium
William Gaddis's The Recognitions: A
Novel About Forgery
A History of New Orleans Music in 100
Tracks
The Great American Novel That Wasn't
In Search of Dupree Bolton
Gulliver's Travels and the Birth of
Genre Fiction
Where Did Our Revolution Go?
Virginia Woolf's Orlando
The Finnegans Wake Toolkit
Do Blues Musicians Need to be Really,
Really Old?
My Favorite American Novel
The New Wave Sci-Fi Novel that Correctly
Predicted the Current Day
Why Only Revolutions Will Not be Televised
Calvino's Winter's Night
12 Memorable Works of Hispanic Fiction
Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice
Fear and Self-Loathing in Scandinavia
The Alt Reality Nobel Prize
Don DeLillo's Underworld
Can a Dictionary be a Novel?
Milton Nascimento: 12 Essential Tracks
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Three Literary Gossip Novels
Bill Evans: 12 Essential Tracks
Early Vintage Wynton Marsalis
Q&A with Ted Gioia
William Gaddis's Eleven-Year-Old Tycoon
Robert Heinlein at One Hundred
The Fourteen Skies of Michael Chabon
Is Bird Dead?
Ken Kesey's Novel-in-a-Box
Why Lester Young Matters
Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire
Who is Grace Kelly?
Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of
Solitude
Could Chet Baker Play Jazz?
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
The Jazzy Side of Frank Zappa
Fritz Leiber at 100
Günter Grass's The Tin Drum
The Jazz Pianist JFK Saved
David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
Harlem Jazz: 12 Essential Tracks
The First Postmodern Novel?
Mark Z. Danielweski's House of Leaves
The Postmodern Mystery: 50 Essential
Works
Art Tatum at 100: 12 Essential Tracks
Fringe Guitar
J.G. Ballard's Crash
Herbie Hancock: 12 Essential Tracks
Remembering Drums of Passion
Keith Jarrett: 12 Essential Tracks
In Defense of The Hobbit
Brad Mehldau: 12 Essential Tracks
David Foster Wallace's The Pale King
The South Asian Tinge in Jazz
Assessing Brad Mehldau at Mid-Career
Michael Ondaatje's Jazz Novel
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones
Lennie Tristano: 12 Essential Tracks
Denny Zeitlin on Mosaic
The Chronicles of Narnia
Revisiting James Joyce's Dubliners
Tito Puente: The Complete 78s
(1949-1955)
Toni Morrison's Beloved
William Gaddis's Player Piano Novel
The Tragedy of Richard Twardzik
William Burroughs's Mexican Adventure
A Solipsistic Novel Finds a Reader
Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue
The Science Fiction of Samuel Delany
Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style
Ian McEwan's Atonement
Interview with Ted Gioia (on Delta Blues)
Roberto Bolaño's 2666
Life A User's Manual
Talking to Myself About the State of Jazz
Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain
Philip Roth's American Pastoral
How I Learned I Was a Jazz Fan
available on the Internet
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
The Adventurer's Guide to Finnegans Wake
Has Music Criticism Turned Into Lifestyle
Reporting?
The New Revolt of the Masses
The Music of the Tango
The Rise of the Fragmented Novel
The Year of Magical Reading
The Weirdest 1960s Novel of Them All
The 8 Memes of the Postmodern Mystery
The Many Lives of James Joyce
Why the Fuss About Jonathan Franzen?
A Conversation About Jazz with Ted Gioia
The Making of Ulysses
The Bumbling Shostakovich
The 100 Best Recordings of 2013
The 100 Best Recordings of 2012
The 100 Best Recordings of 2011
Franco: The James Brown of Africa
How Alice Got to Wonderland
Five Essays on John Fowles
The King of Western Swing
Post Cool
The Letter That Changed Modern Lit
So it Goes: The Unconventional Sci-Fi of
Kurt Vonnegut
Twelve Essential Tango Recordings
Alan Lomax and the FBI
Robert Musil and The Man Without
Qualities
A History of Cool Jazz in 100 Tracks
William Gaddis's Eight Rules of Unruly
Dialogue
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Fix-Up Artist: The Chaotic SF of A.E. van
Vogt
William Burroughs, Abstinence Teacher
Jazz Vocals in the New Millennium
William Gaddis's The Recognitions: A
Novel About Forgery
A History of New Orleans Music in 100
Tracks
The Great American Novel That Wasn't
In Search of Dupree Bolton
Gulliver's Travels and the Birth of
Genre Fiction
Where Did Our Revolution Go?
Virginia Woolf's Orlando
The Finnegans Wake Toolkit
Do Blues Musicians Need to be Really,
Really Old?
My Favorite American Novel
The New Wave Sci-Fi Novel that Correctly
Predicted the Current Day
Why Only Revolutions Will Not be Televised
Calvino's Winter's Night
12 Memorable Works of Hispanic Fiction
Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice
Fear and Self-Loathing in Scandinavia
The Alt Reality Nobel Prize
Don DeLillo's Underworld
Can a Dictionary be a Novel?
Milton Nascimento: 12 Essential Tracks
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Three Literary Gossip Novels
Bill Evans: 12 Essential Tracks
Early Vintage Wynton Marsalis
Q&A with Ted Gioia
William Gaddis's Eleven-Year-Old Tycoon
Robert Heinlein at One Hundred
The Fourteen Skies of Michael Chabon
Is Bird Dead?
Ken Kesey's Novel-in-a-Box
Why Lester Young Matters
Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire
Who is Grace Kelly?
Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of
Solitude
Could Chet Baker Play Jazz?
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
The Jazzy Side of Frank Zappa
Fritz Leiber at 100
Günter Grass's The Tin Drum
The Jazz Pianist JFK Saved
David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
Harlem Jazz: 12 Essential Tracks
The First Postmodern Novel?
Mark Z. Danielweski's House of Leaves
The Postmodern Mystery: 50 Essential
Works
Art Tatum at 100: 12 Essential Tracks
Fringe Guitar
J.G. Ballard's Crash
Herbie Hancock: 12 Essential Tracks
Remembering Drums of Passion
Keith Jarrett: 12 Essential Tracks
In Defense of The Hobbit
Brad Mehldau: 12 Essential Tracks
David Foster Wallace's The Pale King
The South Asian Tinge in Jazz
Assessing Brad Mehldau at Mid-Career
Michael Ondaatje's Jazz Novel
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones
Lennie Tristano: 12 Essential Tracks
Denny Zeitlin on Mosaic
The Chronicles of Narnia
Revisiting James Joyce's Dubliners
Tito Puente: The Complete 78s
(1949-1955)
Toni Morrison's Beloved
William Gaddis's Player Piano Novel
The Tragedy of Richard Twardzik
William Burroughs's Mexican Adventure
A Solipsistic Novel Finds a Reader
Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue
The Science Fiction of Samuel Delany
Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style
Ian McEwan's Atonement
Interview with Ted Gioia (on Delta Blues)
Roberto Bolaño's 2666
Life A User's Manual
Talking to Myself About the State of Jazz
Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain
Philip Roth's American Pastoral
How I Learned I Was a Jazz Fan