“The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous.” —Mark Twain, “How to Tell a Story”
Anatomy of a Sentence: Don DeLillo's Underworld
“The sound of the ash bat making contact with the ball reaches Cotter Martin in the left-field stands, where he sits in a bony-shouldered hunch.”
—Don DeLillo, Underworld
In today’s Anatomy of a Sentence, we explore sound and its ability to connect disparate people. Alongside a memorable sentence from Underworld, we look at passages in Lolita and Madame Bovary.