future progressive, future perfect, and sad melodies: House of Prayer No. 2:

Very slowly this time, I re-read Mark Richard's House of Prayer No. 2, the memoir we'll be discussing in class tomorrow.  We'll be talking about time—its compression, its meaningfulness and meaninglessness, the power of the future progressive tense, the seduction of the future perfect—and how Richard both elides and dwells to keep us within the frame of his memoiristic purpose.  I am looking forward to that conversation.

As I read, I again and again stumbled across passages that have peculiar and particular relevance to me right now.  Good books do this.  Good books speak directly to you.

How about this, from the immaculate House of Prayer No. 2?

You are also interested in how you can create tension in texts between what meanings the words are conveying on the page and what the sounds of the words themselves are evoking in a reader. Why are certain melodies sad? Melodies without words.