I once heard a passing reference to a fictional writer who was such a perfectionist that he spent an entire lifetime writing and rewriting a single sentence.
Does anyone know by chance what novel or story this comes from?
It reminds me of Leaf by Niggle, an excellent short story by J.R.R. Tolkien. Niggle was an artist who never completed the picture of a tree he started, but nearly perfected a leaf.
Part of the reminder is that Prof Tolkien himself kept writing and rewriting what was edited into the Silmarillion starting in 1917 and up until his death.
I suspect he didn’t spend his whole life, just a period of it.
Sounds like something I read in a John Barth novel. I believe he polished an entire short story down to a single word. “Olive.”
This feels like something Louis Borges could have written.The closest I can think of is “The Secret Miracle”, a playwright is to be executed and prays for a years respite to finish his play. This is granted: at the moment the soldiers are ordered to fire their rifles, time is frozen. For a year he stands in front of the execution squad and writes and rewrites his play in his head.
Would that be a “life sentence”?
Yes.
I suppose it would.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Aw crap, it ends in a semicolon.
“As it happens, I’m owed a lot of money,” said Ford, “so if I ever get hold of it, can I come and see you then maybe?”
“Sure, I’ll be here,” said the girl. “So how much is a lot?”
“Fifteen years’ back pay.”
“For?”
“Writing two words.”
“Zarquon,” said the girl. “Which one took the time?”
“The first one. Once I’d got that the second one just came one afternoon after lunch.”
- So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. Chapter 5
Douglas Adams
I have a vague recollection of that from The Plague by Albert Camus. If I recall correctly, the sentence was all variations on a girl/woman riding a chestnut horse. Can’t remember all the details, I think I read that book about 30 years ago.
I think this is from Dickens.
That’s what I remember also.
Sounds similar to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
Reminds me of a character in a Mark Leyner novel. He was a respected, prominent copywriter, most known for writing the sign on the men’s room door that said “Men”. It was a disappointment in his career though that he did not write the corresponding sign, “Women.”
No TV and no beer make Homer something something.
I came to say it was from The Plague, but Broomstick beat me to it. The writer was named Grand, and he would spend whole weeks on a single conjunction. The sentence (as it reads when we get to see it) is, “One fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”
It has to be said
novel writing from Dorchester
Further responses are welcome, but this was probably the example I was trying to recall. Thanks to both of you!
Evocative prose, to be sure, but it could use some tweaking.
Oh wow, your comment had me pulling a Mark Leyner novel off the shelf (The Tetherballs of Bougainville) to reread it! His writing is so ingenious and yet has really flown under the radar!
Ironically, Douglas Adams himself was said to be pretty much the same way, rewriting one page over and over again until it was to his satisfaction. Not quite spending your whole life on one sentence, but still an eccentric way to go about writing.