#SundaySentence
Every weekend I participate in David Abrams’s “#SundaySentence” project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
He felt lost; as long as he had held her in his arms, he had felt that there was the barest chance that he might elude this shroud of mist that surrounded him.
Source: The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
It’s a fabulous sentence. I keep playing with the adjective “barest” – I’ve read the sentence
a number of times without an adjective (a chance that he might elude that mist keeping him lost. Or with another adjective (I’m a poet, I play with words). “Barest” could be a play on the idea of nakedness (reading out of context), adding another layer and image to the sentence. And, of course by using it we realize just how lost he is – and how slight the chance for the character to be “found” or “stable.” Knowing Wright’s homosexuality and the topic of the book – the adjective deepens meaning and isn’t sexual intimacy – just an amazing way to say how thickly that shroud of mist surrounds the character. (Sorry – Erika – you got me thinking about language. Thanks)
Please don’t apologize! If you’re thinking about it, David’s project is really working!