Impressive. That sentence should be stuffed and mounted on a wall.
Snerk. No kidding. I literally had to read through it two or three times to really catch everything he was trying to say because at about word twenty or thirty, I'd start glazing over and trying to find somewhere to put a definitive pause of the sort a period would provide. Don't get me wrong... lovely sentence, lots of meaning, and I get what he was trying to do in conveying a breathless, almost stream-of-consciousness feel, which was appropriate for that point in the story, however, I think that technique works a little better in first person. To me, in first you don't have same the distance from the narrative that third provides (just IMO, mind you) and you can get caught up in the sort of manic chaos that sort of phrasing provides.
Or I could just be full of crap.
I think Thomas Mann once wrote an entire chapter as a single sentence. Of course the German language lends itself to this...
In German, you can write an entire sentence as a single word.
One of my favorite passages in
Absalom, Absalom!
includes a sentences that goes on for, like, at least half a page. And the other two sentences are really short.
In German, you can write an entire sentence as a single word.
Hell, "backpfeifengesicht" is practically a whole sentance.
Oy, in the book I just finished, I had to slog through, no lie, a 103 word sentence/paragraph.
One of my favorite passages in Absalom, Absalom! includes a sentences that goes on for, like, at least half a page.
I was just about to ask Barb, "Faulkner?" Other contenders include Henry James and James Joyce. But mostly Faulkner.
Absalom, Absalom! has a 1,287-word sentence.
Oh, Faulkner. You wacky wordsmith.
The thing is, Faulkner has 1,000-word sentences that are worth reading, whereas many books have 10-word sentences that aren't worth the trouble.
