Obscurorant 2.0

Which it’s another bookish meme, that I found here.

List some of your favourite words:

Cull. Aeroplane (I love the anachronism). Pockets.

What’s your favourite maxim or proverb?

Is this required to be a literary maxim or proverb? I’ve never been much for quoting proverbs.
What’s your favourite quotation?

“Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures.”

From the Tale of Beren in The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.)

What’s your favourite first line of a novel?

“He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad, and that was his only patrimony.”

(From Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini.)

Give an example of a piece of description that’s really pleased you in your reading::

Jack Aubrey, framed for stock fraud, is placed in the stocks in Patrick O’Brian’s The Reverse of the Medal:

He still had this detached grey expression on the following Wednesday, as he stood in a bare dirty room on the south side of Cornhill waiting to be led out to the pillory. The sheriff’s men and the constables in charge of him were all clustered together at the window: they were intensely nervous and they kept up a continual flow of talk.
‘It did ought to have been done days ago, right after the sentence. The news has had time to go down to the Land’s End and up to John o’ Groats.’
‘And every fucking port in the kingdom: Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Plymouth. . .’
‘Sweeting’s Alley is quite blocked up.’
‘So is Castle Alley, and more is coming in. They ought to have sent for the soldiers long ago.’
‘We have four constables, four scavengers and one beadle in the ward. What can we do with such a crowd?’
‘If we get out of this alive, I shall take my wife and children down to live the other side of Epping.’
‘They keep pouring up from the river. There are the chaps from the press-tender itself, with their bloody cutlasses and bludgeons, Christ have mercy.’
‘They are blocking each side of the Change with carts. God help us.’
‘Why don’t he give the word? Why don’t Mr Essex give the word? They are growing outrageous down there. We shall all be scragged.’

Saint Paul’s and the City churches had tolled twelve some five or ten minutes ago and the crowd in Cornhill was becoming impatient. ‘Eight bells,’ cried some. ‘Eight bells, there. Turn the glass and strike the bell.’
‘Bring him out, bring him out, bring him out and let’s have a look at him,’ shouted the leader of another group. He was the leader of a band hired by some disappointed stockjobbers, and like his fellows he carried a bag of stones. Bonden turned sharp upon him and said ‘What are you doing here, mate?’
‘I’ve come to see the fun.’
‘Then just you go and see the fun at Hockley in the Hole, that’s where, cully. Because why? Because this is for seamen only, do you see. Seamen only, not landsmen.’
The man looked at Bonden, and at the many closed, dead-serious, lowering faces behind him; brown, tough, often earringed, often pigtailed; he looked at his own people, a pale and weedy crew, and with hardly a pause he said ‘Well, I don’t care. Have it your own way, sailor.’

Davis, a very big, ugly, dangerous man who had sailed with Jack in many commissions, had an even shorter way of dealing with Wray’s gang of genuine bruisers, who stood out most surprisingly in their flash clothes and low-crowned hats among the now almost solid naval mass – most of the citizens, even the apprentices and the street-boys hawking pails of filth had withdrawn beyond the barrier or to neighbouring buildings. Davis, with his four uglier brothers and a dumb Negro bosun’s mate, went straight to them and in a thick voice, choking with fury, said ‘Bugger off.’ He watched them go and then shouldered his brutal way through his shipmates to where Stephen was standing by the steps of the pillory with the few pugilists his thief-taker had managed to engage – men equally conspicuous. To them he said ‘And you bugger off too. We mean you no harm, gents, but you bugger off too.’

There was white spittle at his mouth and he was breathing very hard. Stephen nodded to his men and they sidled away towards St Michael’s. As they reached the church its clock struck the quarter, and Mr Essex gave the word at last. Jack was led out of the dark room into the strong light, and as they guided him up the steps he could see nothing for the glare. ‘Your head here sir, if you please,’ said the sheriff’s man in a low, nervous, conciliating voice, ‘and your hands just here.’

The man was slowly fumbling with the bolt, hinge and staple, and as Jack stood there with his hands in the lower half-rounds, his sight cleared: he saw that the broad street was filled with silent, attentive men, some in long togs, some in shore-going rig, some in plain frocks, but all perfectly recognizable as seamen. And officers, by the dozen, by the score: midshipmen and officers. Babbington was there, immediately in front of the pillory, facing him with his hat off, and Pullings, Stephen of course, Mowett, Dundas. . . He nodded to them, with almost no change in his iron expression, and his eye moved on: Parker, Rowan, Williamson, Hervey . . . and men from long, long ago, men he could scarcely name, lieutenants and commanders putting their promotion at risk, midshipmen and master’s mates their commissions, warrant-officers their advancement.

‘The head a trifle forward, if you please sir,’ murmured the sheriff’s man, and the upper half of the wooden frame came down, imprisoning his defenceless face. He heard the click of the bolt and then in the dead silence a strong voice cry ‘Off hats’. With one movement hundreds of broad-brimmed tarpaulin-covered hats flew off and the cheering began, the fierce full-throated cheering he had so often heard in battle.

Which five writers do you particularly admire for their use of language?

Patrick O’Brian, P.G. Wodehouse, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway and J.R.R. Tolkien.

And are there writers whose style you really dislike?

Well, I can’t say for sure if it’s their style but you are unlikely to find me reading anything by John Updike or John Irving.

What’s the key to really fine writing, in your opinion?

How the hell would I know? I like too many writers with differing styles to be able to offer up ‘the key’ to anyone.

UPDATE: Sheila did this meme as well – and has some more cogent thoughts on  really fine writing to offer than I.