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a short paragraph in plain English Can anyone rewrite the following short paragraph in plain English, please? In a scratchy ink painting of a steam engine, the text captures the rush of a revelation that does not understand its whole significance, ‘‘I have, I confess, truly to jerk myself with violence from memories and images, stages and phases and branching arms, that catch and hold me as I pass them."
Jun 3, 2015 8:14 PM
Answers · 4
Answer, part 2. According to the writer: Pettibon combined his picture with an apropos quotation that captures that experience. Google also tells me that the quotation itself is from Henry James--from a volume of his autobiography entitled "The Middle Years." Henry James, 1843-1916, is considered a great writer, but personally I have never been able to read him. He is famous for writing long, convoluted, hard-to-understand sentences. "I have, I confess, truly to jerk myself with violence from memories and images, stages and phases and branching arms, that catch and hold me as I pass them" means that his memories are like something with "branching arms that catch and hold me," perhaps like thorny bushes, or trees in a dense jungle. He gets stuck in each vivid memory, and he to "jerk myself with violence" from each one in order to get to the next one and create a coherent narrative. So, Henry James was trying to make sense of tangled, vivid flashes of memory, so his quotation makes sense when we are looking at a mysterious and powerful picture and getting tangled, vivid, partial flashes of insight. It would certainly help if we had the actual Pettibon picture to look at. I couldn't find it but perhaps this one is somewhat similar: http://dailyserving.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010-PETRA1632-72-600x447.jpg
June 4, 2015
Answer, part 1: From Google Books I learn that the passage is from a book about graphic novels, and it's describing the work of someone named Pettibon who combined his own artwork with "literary quotations." The first part is the writer describing one of the panels, the second is the "literary quotation" included in the panel. Let's start with "In a scratchy ink painting of a steam engine, the text captures the rush of a revelation that does not understand its whole significance." The panel of the graphic novel is a "scratchy ink painting of a steam engine." When you look at an artwork, sometimes you feel that you experience "the rush of a revelation." Yet at the same time you're not sure just what the picture means. You have a flash of insight, but it is only partial insight. You don't understand it completely.
June 4, 2015
To me - The meaning of that paragraph is it's meaninglessness. It is either intended to be weird -like a nightmare, or the author has some drug or mental health issues! ;^)
June 3, 2015
I've read it three times and it's doing my head in! I found the original text. I'd have to read a lot of the book to really get a good feeling for it. The meaning is either very abstract and or in fact not cogent at all. If you pay me for a half hour session, I'd make a good attempt! If someone else does a decent job for you on here for free, then I'll give them due credit.
June 3, 2015
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