Really am enjoying Bradbury’s writing style along with the story; he is truly proficient and a bit innovative on writing, such as this fine way of ending one chapter and opening another:
The storm was coming. The storm wasn’t coming. No matter which, he was glad Jim had that grand contraption up there. "
Night!" "
Night."
Their separate doors slammed.Chapter 8
Will opened the door and shut it again. Quietly this time. "That’s better," said his mother’s voice. (p. 33)
So skillfully done just by rearranging the way it would normally be set up, i.e., giving the mother’s admonishment to "close the door quietly."
But then sometimes an author messes up. I was rightfully admiring this little bit at the time I read it:
Way down the third book corridor, an oldish man whispered his broom along in the dark, mounding the fallen spices. (p. 14)
That’s a Wow. "whispered his broom," mimicking the soft swish of the bristles. The "fallen spices" that refer to Will’s thoughts of all the worlds and things in it that a library full of books offers. Then, this:
Happy? But how and why? Here, a few feet off, was the janitor, the library man, the stranger, his uniform gone but his face still the face of a man happier at night alone in the deep marble vaults, whispering his broom in the drafty corridors. (p. 35)
Too soon; too soon. The whispering broom is strong and lovely enough to make its mark on the careful reader’s mind. Within the same book would be bad enough, but here, within twenty pages? It ruined the image for me, though it might have been meant to reinforce, or maybe it was just an oversight.
To be fair to Bradbury, whom I deeply respect as a writer, I’ve caught this sort of repetition in Cormac McCarthy’s novels as well. I don’t recall exactly now what it was, but the terminology he used was so similar in two different books–that I’d read at least a year apart–that it died instantly for me the second time around.
Beautiful wording stays in the mind of the reader; perhaps it stays in the mind of the writer as well and he simply forgets that he has already placed it on the pages to share.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I’ve had that happen to me. I like a metaphor so much that I re-use it. There’s a sort of blindness, a wilful looking-elsewhere, to it.
On revision, I usually spot them. Usually.
Dean, I’m sure that I’ve done this too! I particularly find it easy to do–and easy to spot–in poetry, where that one perfect word or phrase is in your head and even after it’s out on paper, it’s still circling in your head and needs to be voiced again.
I suppose it just shows the importance here of editing.