NARRATIVE SENTENCES

Abstract

1 0 Y N A R R A T I V E S E N T E N C E S W I L L I A M G A S S Let us begin with an example from Ford Madox Ford’s The Fifth Queen, always a good source of sentences of every kind. Upon the opening of the novel we meet Magister Nicholas Udal, a teacher, who is hungry, cold, and drenched. He stood in the mud: long, thin, brown in his doctor’s gown of fur, with his black flapped cap that buttoned well under his chin and let out his brown, lean, shaven and humorous face like a woodpecker’s peering out of a hole in a tree. [Ford Madox Ford, The Fifth Queen, 1906] 1 1 R He stood in the mud: long, 1 thin, brown in his doctor’s gown of fur, with his black flapped cap that buttoned well under his chin and let out his brown, lean, 2 shaven and humorous face like a woodpecker’s peering out of a hole 3 in a tree. There are many things to observe about this early moment in the text. The lane in which Magister Udal is standing, wondering where to go to get dry, have a bite, and enjoy a wench, is suckafoot muddy. ‘‘He stood in the mud’’ puts him there quite firmly, but he is not unventuresome, as a stick-in-the-mud would be. After the colon, there is what is commonly called a description – the man at this juncture – though not a complete or even extensive picture, for oncoming passages add that he has two books beneath his arms, and that they ‘‘poked out his gown on either side.’’ Moreover, ‘‘the bitter cold pinched his finger ends as if they had been caught in a door.’’ So there he is – with his learning and his loins – in a sack of wet fur. The sentence is divided into two roughly equivalent parts (plus a metaphorical addendum) announced by the verb phrases ‘‘he stood’’ and ‘‘let out.’’ Each contains a list of attributes that ends in a long, mouth-shaping line. The most important word is possibly the preposition in. The context tells us that the magister is in doubt, and then that he is in the mud, in his doctor’s gown, and in 1 2 G A S S Y his black flapped cap. Not only is he inside, so are his books, warily peeking out. The repetitions of out only increase the importance of being ‘‘in’’ – inside, out of the elements, in an inn (if we may be permitted the pun), qua≈ng some mead, eying a maid. Once within he may look out at the weather as he now peeks out from his fur and his cap. Clearly this sentence is part of a story and contributes to it, but what is the point of suggesting that it contains incipient narrative elements, especially when it possesses obviously contrary qualities ? Narrative runs from its words, and it does so in two directions: first it leaves the word for the actions and events – the words, it believes, are there to designate; second it looks forward to the words (and events) that are about to arrive. It does not like to dally over a meal; it bolts its food: salad only delays the steak that may itself be valued principally because its final swallow signals the onset of dessert. In music one would say narrative was voice-led. Listen, however, to this masterful prose speak its piece: the magister stood in the mud, yes – ‘‘brown in his doctor’s gown,’’ ‘‘with his black flapped cap that.’’ Or should we revel in the movement of the vowels: ‘‘on,’’ ‘‘in,’’ ‘‘ow,’’ until the o’s end in ‘‘oc’’ and ‘‘or’’ to be softly closed by ‘‘ur.’’ ‘‘He stood in the mud: long, thin, brown, in his doctor’s gown of fur.’’ Hurrying on – is anything happening? – to the second ‘‘brown,’’ we read of ‘‘his brown, lean, shaven and humorous face’’ that has been ‘‘let out’’ like you let out your dog, or . . . and at this point we can stop to admire the...