The Night Inspector—style notes
June 2, 2007
I’m almost finished with Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector, a novel I heard good things about, both from reviews and from Mr. Martin (I think it’s on his ID book list). It’s a very dark, very well written novel, focusing on two scarred and damaged characters. One was a marksman—read sniper—badly wounded during the Civil War, while the other is Herman Melville, one of the great novelists in American literary history, who, unfortunately, did not receive much critical or popular support during his lifetime and therefore became embittered, often viewing himself as a failure.
But what I noticed in a passage I just read, is a style note I want to pass along. I think the writer wants his style to sound authentically 19th century; to do so, he uses long sentences characteristic of the period. But to keep the parts of those sentences clear in relation to each other, and to allow for both narration of action and mental reflection on those actions in the same sentence, he uses punctuation, specifically commas, to give a precise rhythm to his sentences (as perhaps I just did with this sentence).
Here are two samples; the main characters are in a small boat on the Hudson River, at night, pursuing another boat up the coastline of Manhattan. “M” in the second passage is Herman Melville.
1. But even at some proximity to the shore, and so far downtown, passing the ships at anchor, and the pleasure craft upon which the wealthy pass their nights in pleasures and to which the likes of us might not have pretended, we all, I think, experienced the power of the deep, swift river, and the fear that cannot help but reside, awaiting travelers, in that dark water. (10 commas, 67 words)
2. And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale, the tiller in one hand while the other seized the gaff hook on its long pole, planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat, his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed or was thrown forward by the lantern, M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward, over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks and made the sound of a railroad locomotive roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope. (13 commas, 99 words)
I particularly like the second passage, both because of the way the short phrases at the beginning of the sentence paint a precise, detailed picture of Melville standing in the pursuit boat and because of the way the sentence ends with the longer phrase describing the boat being pursued, completely changing the rhythm of the sentence by using action verbs and participles like “retreating,” “spouted, “ threw,” made,” and “roaring,” tied together with the conjunction “and” rather than commas.
In fact, I'm wondering how the rhythms of that sentence would work if I arranged it on the page in the form of a short poem:
And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale,
the tiller in one hand while the other
seized the gaff hook on its long pole,
planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat,
his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed
or was thrown forward by the lantern,
M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward,
over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney
that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks
and made the sound of a railroad locomotive
roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope.
It's an interesting way to look at the sentence, because it emphasizes some of the images, especially the verbs, and also highlights the metaphor of the locomotive sound at the end.
I’m not advocating that you write 80- or 100-word sentences. But I am suggesting that you punctuate by more than rule when you write. The basics still apply: commas in series, commas after a long introductory clause or phrase, commas between the clauses in a compound sentences, commas after words like well, yes, no, and the names of people being spoken to in direct address. But read your sentences aloud and use good, strong, punctuation to create detail, tension, and rhythm in your sentences.
