Two Great Sentences, One First-Tier Painting

"Though most settlements of the pale were arranged along the road like the branches of a tree, not Koidanyev, because of its relation to the river. From the main highway a spur led directly to its heart. You entered upon this road and left on it. The road was bisected by the river, against which the citizens of Koidanyev had retaliated by bisecting the river with a bridge."

- From Jacob Bayer and the Telephone, a short story by Mark Helprin


I am rereading The Pacific this week and I had to stop when I came across this sentence so that I could run around the house and read it to everyone. I know it is basically a fancy way of saying there is a bridge across the river, but it cracks me up. The word "retaliated", the assigning of a motive, is what seals the deal. It is simple, absurd, and it works. Reading Helprin is like eating an incredible piece of chocolate, you just savor it and slowly run it back and forth in your mind over and over. Wonderful!

"The most difficult of the dinner parties I ruin are usually around Christmas, and always those of the younger members of the firm, who, no matter how well they have done, have yet to find their place because they have yet to fall from grace and restore themselves. They know I have built and rebuilt, that, quite apart from my military history, I have, in corporate terms come back from the dead. That very thing, though I did not ask for it, is what they fear the most to get and fear the most in me.
It is why, while I sit still and merely smile, they hold forth in a volume of words that would blow up a tire. You would think that because they talk as enthusiastically as talking dogs, they would win. While they say everything, I say nothing. I am shown the second-tier paintings, and harried children who can play Mendelssohn, and from the corner of my eye I can see the ineluctable Range Rovers, the Viking stoves, and the flower boxes perfectly tended by silent Peruvians with broken hearts."

-From Reconstruction, a short story by Mark Helprin

I remember my dad telling me a story about a preacher who quoted C.S. Lewis in every sermon and eventually, the elders of the church told him to quit quoting Lewis in every sermon or he would be fired. The next Sunday he couldn't help himself, heavily quoted Mr. Lewis, and that was the last sermon he ever gave at that particular church. I feel kind of like that preacher tonight. I just can't help myself, but at least I am not alone; the silent Peruvians bear mute witness to Helprin's genius.

Note: this is my one hundredth post. It took me a little longer to get here than I had hoped, but here's to one hundred more. Thanks for reading.

The Beach at Palavas, Gustave Courbet, 1854