May I Have a Word?

The book that sends me to the dictionary today is Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis. But first: I have decided that if I could write like any author who has ever lived, I would choose Lewis. Surprising, ne'st pas? But it's true. His language is modern, clear and strong, and his analogies are a source of terrible envy. They are razor sharp, and when he employs one, you always understand his concept better. He never wastes words or rambles (a terrible habit of mine), and though his writing is very rugged, he can still be beautiful.

So, something to consider today. Who would you write like if you were given the option?

In the meantime, Perelandra is no Herculean task like A Thread of Years, but I did have to look up mandrill, which Merriam-Webster defines as "a large baboon (Mandrillus sphinx syn. Papio sphinx) of central Africa west of the Congo River with the male having a bright red and blue muzzle."

The quote:

He remembers seeing the Enemy for a moment looking not like Weston, but like a mandrill, and realising almost at once that this was delirium.

The second item I had to research was not a quote but a poem, a reference to The Battle of Maldon. Here's the reference:

Once he was actually astride the enemy's chest,, squeezing it's throat with both hands and - he found to his surprise - shouting a line out of The Battle of Maldon...

Here's a bit o' the poem:

Now room is meted you, come swiftly to us,
Warriors to war. Only God knows
Who at the end shall possess this fight's field.

I don't know if those are the lines Ransom shouts out during his battle with the enemy, but they seemed appropriate. If you're curious, here's the whole thing.
It goes without saying that if I were to write like Lewis, I'd also need his prodigious smarts.

May I Have A Word? Updated: I Knew I'd Be Back

Gentlefolk, I am on page 22, (22!!) and already I've had to look up two words in A Judgement In Stone. Blast those clever Brits and their fancy vocabularies.

The first word was atavistic, which appeared on page 1 (page 1!!). Merriam-Webster says this: 1 a: recurrence in an organism of a trait or character typical of an ancestral form and usually due to genetic recombination b: recurrence of or reversion to a past style, manner, outlook, approach, or activity [architectural atavism].

How sad am I that I'm not entirely sure I understand definition a. Thankfully, M-W's suggests that "throwback" is a close synonym. Huzzah!

Here is the sentence in which it appeared, "She had the awful, practical sanity of the atavistic ape disguised as twentieth-century woman."

Do you think "throwback" really helps that sentence be more clear? The jury's still out for me.

OK, here's the second word, limpid. It's a word I've read a thousand times, and I've always gleaned a sort of definition from the context in which it was used. But since I was consulting old M-W for atavistic, I figured I might as well get straight on limpid.

1 a: marked by transparency : pellucid <limpid streams> b: clear and simple in style <limpid prose> 2: absolutely serene and untroubled

And here's the sentence, "A limpid blue sky, pale green wheat growing, a cuckoo calling -- in May he sings all day -- an exultation of birds carolling their territorial claims from every tree."

Two words in 22 pages, the first word on page 1, and I'm not sure I helped myself understand the first sentence. I think I'll be back here for more before this book is over.

Updated 8:19 pm for phthisic, the adjective version of phthises: a progressively wasting or consumptive condition ; especially : pulmonary tuberculosis

"In his fantasies Melinda even looked different, paler, thinner, rather phthisic, very much of another world."

Our Heroine Requests a Word, Kind Sir.

I am going to institute a recurring feature on this blog in which Our Heroine 'fesses up to words she had to look up for meaning and/or pronunciation. I don't know what y'all will find more odd: the words Our Heroine doesn't know, or the places she finds them.

Today's word is axiomatic, which was a look-it-up for meaning word. And Merriam-Webster said this: axiomatic -- 1 : taken for granted : self-evident

I encountered the word at The Corner today and here's the specific sentence:

For Mayer, it is axiomatic that the aftermath of September 11, and what it revealed about the flaws in the American security apparatus that made the jihadist attack possible, did not necessitate any new framework for thinking about the protection of the United States from a new form of foreign aggression.

No judgements, people (and that means both the word and the outlet)!