Close-Reading Bingo

Under the Oak: "The diction within this passage uses a precise, with intermediate writing literal and direct."
Chillin in the Nyle: "Salinger first describes the parents as “touchy as hell”."
The Lost Message of Words: "“They were the free-standing kind: a pair of integral sins swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight.”"
Back of the Blog: "..shows the way he is able to control his writing."
The best I saw was InsideOut...

Practice Diction Analysis

Analysis of J. D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"

J. D. Salinger is an author who uses very low and denotative words to write his stories. This is evident in his story “Catcher in the Rye”, which is written as if it were a personal account of the author's.  In “Catcher in the Rye”, his low, denotative words express a very blunt, down-to-earth nature of the narrator’s tone, while the fear of acting out against his parents’ wishes, not wanting them to have “two hemorrhages apiece” should he tell the reader “anything personal about them” surges through his mind. The narrators makes comments of his parents like “They’re nice and all-I’m not saying that-but they’re also touchy as hell” and says “I mean that’s all I told D.B. about, and he’s my brother” about his brother. These selections suggest a withdrawal from his family and possibly that he feels insecure about who he’s related to and that he does not wish to make his parents mad at him. The use of such words may reflect Salinger’s opinions on other writers at the time and their use of large, figurative language and words. Salinger’s works are not the most image-inducing, but while they don’t drip out of the reader’s mouth with luscious figurative language, they do have a certain tone and different sense to them then found in other author’s works.

Currently 10/20

Pages Read:
A Game of Thrones: 100 pages

Style Mapping Posts:
The Chief: The adealine injected cheering of the crowd and violent spasisms of the bull give a noisy claging sound to this excert.
Running in Circles: The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy has a musical and elegantly figurative sound to it.
Purple Moments: The word choice is more familiar and blunt, grating and clattering, and also suggestive and imagistic.
Less Than Three: It pays no heed to the way that words sound together and has extraordinarily little figurative language.
DolphinCat: In the excerpt from Stardust the words contains a very straight-forward description of a town named Wall that has a very primitive feel with huts instead of houses and tracks instead of roads.

My favorite has to be The Cheif's use of "spasms"  and "clanging"... very unique.

Style Mapping

From author to author, the style of writing changes, from musical to harsh and abrupt, from denotative to connotative. In the literary piece Stardust, author Neil Gaiman uses words that are not exactly fancy.The words he uses come from a lower point on the graph and are on the "common" side. Although, the use of words such as "taciturn" and "stocky" shift the graph to the lower right. In Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, McCarthy uses a higher vocabulary. His graph would be towards the top and to the right towards the more Harsh and elevated grouping of words. He uses words like "sacristy", "deadcart", and "cantina". Finally, In George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the words used are very fancy and elaborate and give great detail. His graph would be in the upper right as well, bu tit would be higher than McCarthy's point. It is easy to see, each writer has their own style that is unique to them. From Gainman, to McCarthy, to Martin, they are all different.

A True Game of Thrones

So, the protagonist, Ned has been locked away in the dungeons, his oldest son, Rob who is only 15, has called the banners for war, Sansa has been taken prisoner by the Queen, the King is dead, and Araya is missing. All of this has ensued in the moments following Ned's betrayal of Littlefinger. Down in the dungeons for what seems like days, Ned's visited by The Spider and is told if he wishes to live and if he wishes Sansa to live, he would do well to take a knee and confess his sins to the Queen. War is ravaging the land around them and friends are turning to enemies. Thus is the rich story of A Game of Thrones.
I await eagerly to continue with the last couple pages of the book, and then continue on with the rest of the series. This book is, by far, the best thing I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone ever slightly interested.

Quarterly

So I have kind of surprised my self with this free reading. I have vary rarely ever read by my own free will. Ever since this class started, however, I've read all the time willingly. I am not sure if its the books I read, the class itself, or what ever, but for the first time, I think, I'm really enjoying reading and have not been able to stop. I hope this is something that will continue with me throughout the rest of my life and never leave. I've found the joy of reading and am enjoying it to the fullest extent.

Currently 10/11/11

A Game of Thrones
Total pages read: 550
Read this week: 110

Sentences of the Quarter:
1. "I said nothing of need," Lord Tywin replied. "My words were courtesy, nothing more. You need not join us. Then men of the Winterlands are made of iron and ice, and even my boldest knights fear to face them."
Oh, deftly done, Tyrion thought, smiling crookedly.
"The Burned Men fear nothing. Timmett son of Timett will ride with the lions."
2. Lord Tywin did not stir from his chair, but he did give his dwarf son a long, searching look. "I see that the rumors of your demise were unfounded."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Father," Tyrion said. "No need to leap up and embrace me, I wouldn't want you to strain yourself.."
3. Shagga glowered, a fearsome sight to see. "Shagga son of Dolf likes this not..."