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Irene Iddesleigh: Your favourite passages

Submitted by jonojono on
I love the one below (a short explanation of the context first): (Sir John has taken his son to enrol at College. He spends the night at the school and has a long, emotional discussion with his old friend, School President O'Sullivan. President O'Sullivan worked with Oscar Otwell at the time his elopement with Irene 7 or 8 years before, and provides John with the first confirmation that Irene took off with Oscar. It seems that Sir John had always been holding out hope that Irene would return to him, but now, on his return home, Sir John calls in the lawyers.) Sir John demands "that the pen of persuasion be dipped into the ink of revenge and spread thickly along the paragraph of blood-related charity to blank the intolerable words that referred to the woman he was now convinced, beyond doubt, had braved the bridge of bigamy.

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Submitted by jonojono on 18 Dec 2007 - 11:26 Permalink

I like this one: "Perceiving the faint flicker of light that occasionally flung its feeble rays against the dim fanlight of faithful Fanny's home . . ." It's a fairly modest effort by Mrs. Ros's standards, but there is something extraordinarily magical about delivering a line with so many /f/ sounds without ever descending into the use of expletives.
Submitted by jonojono on 17 Jan 2008 - 11:25 Permalink

While we (well . . . so far just 'I') are discussing great passages from AMR's novels, there's a sentiment from Jack Loudan that I completely agree with and is worth mentioning: "Quotation does not do her justice. One can skim off a few passages to illustrate her style and give some idea of the story. But much more lies beneath the surface and only becomes apparent when her books are considered as a whole." Of course, this would be true of any novelist. But it is worth making a point of in AMR's case because there is such a temptation to quote her (surely only Shakespeare has offered more memorable lines), the outcome of which is that we tend to reduce her work to the mere sum of all its alliterative ludicrousness. I think 'Thine in Storm and Calm' is a wonderful collection, but it also encourages this reductionism, and I would strongly fans to seek out her original books as well, if possible.
Posted by jonojono on
I love the one below (a short explanation of the context first): (Sir John has taken his son to enrol at College. He spends the night at the school and has a long, emotional discussion with his old friend, School President O'Sullivan. President O'Sullivan worked with Oscar Otwell at the time his elopement with Irene 7 or 8 years before, and provides John with the first confirmation that Irene took off with Oscar. It seems that Sir John had always been holding out hope that Irene would return to him, but now, on his return home, Sir John calls in the lawyers.) Sir John demands "that the pen of persuasion be dipped into the ink of revenge and spread thickly along the paragraph of blood-related charity to blank the intolerable words that referred to the woman he was now convinced, beyond doubt, had braved the bridge of bigamy.

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Leave a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

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  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
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Submitted by jonojono on 18 Dec 2007 - 11:26 Permalink

I like this one: "Perceiving the faint flicker of light that occasionally flung its feeble rays against the dim fanlight of faithful Fanny's home . . ." It's a fairly modest effort by Mrs. Ros's standards, but there is something extraordinarily magical about delivering a line with so many /f/ sounds without ever descending into the use of expletives.
Submitted by jonojono on 17 Jan 2008 - 11:25 Permalink

While we (well . . . so far just 'I') are discussing great passages from AMR's novels, there's a sentiment from Jack Loudan that I completely agree with and is worth mentioning: "Quotation does not do her justice. One can skim off a few passages to illustrate her style and give some idea of the story. But much more lies beneath the surface and only becomes apparent when her books are considered as a whole." Of course, this would be true of any novelist. But it is worth making a point of in AMR's case because there is such a temptation to quote her (surely only Shakespeare has offered more memorable lines), the outcome of which is that we tend to reduce her work to the mere sum of all its alliterative ludicrousness. I think 'Thine in Storm and Calm' is a wonderful collection, but it also encourages this reductionism, and I would strongly fans to seek out her original books as well, if possible.