![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Italics: From the latin word Italicus, meaning from Italia (Italy). Gracefully tilted. Powerful as the underline or boldfacing but with quiet reserved dignity it sets itself apart. In times past, the great golden age. Men of power, of consequence used italics to great dramatic effect! The boldest by far, ever gazed upon by the puny eye of man is perhaps Arthur C. Clarke's Prelude to Space!
In the scant space of a page and a half an epic story unfolds before us. The names of mighty titans are cast down like chaff before the wind. Playthings before the might of such florid writing! None today might ever be so bold as to us such mighty phrases but none were so bold as the men of his day. Nor perhaps even thing for he wielded italics not as power unto himself but as a power to set apart to disown such mighty and errant words as he had cast before him on the page, for he was mortal and feared their might! And so it began, a Prelude to Space
Okay. I'm not doing this justice. You REALLY just have to read it. I'm actually wondering if he was poking fun at someone else by how over-the-top it is. In the prelude to Prelude to Space (I'm reading a 1974 reprint) he briefly mentions some argument with CS Lewis which appears to be Lewis spewing dogma about how man needs God to be moral and Clarke disagreeing. Though I don't think the opening is a reference to Lewis.
Anyhow. I secretly confess I might enjoy reading an entire book written turgidly. The first chapter is kind of bland after such a grandiose opening, and it was late last night so I got no further than that. I'm gearing up with old sci-fi in an attempt to make it through reading a Heinlein novel without throwing it against the wall (which has been the outcome of every previous attempt I've made at reading Heinlein, though I'm told perhaps I started with the wrong books as they were later in his career) Anyhow. Nothing to say really. I just enjoyed the really silly opening.
In the scant space of a page and a half an epic story unfolds before us. The names of mighty titans are cast down like chaff before the wind. Playthings before the might of such florid writing! None today might ever be so bold as to us such mighty phrases but none were so bold as the men of his day. Nor perhaps even thing for he wielded italics not as power unto himself but as a power to set apart to disown such mighty and errant words as he had cast before him on the page, for he was mortal and feared their might! And so it began, a Prelude to Space
Okay. I'm not doing this justice. You REALLY just have to read it. I'm actually wondering if he was poking fun at someone else by how over-the-top it is. In the prelude to Prelude to Space (I'm reading a 1974 reprint) he briefly mentions some argument with CS Lewis which appears to be Lewis spewing dogma about how man needs God to be moral and Clarke disagreeing. Though I don't think the opening is a reference to Lewis.
Anyhow. I secretly confess I might enjoy reading an entire book written turgidly. The first chapter is kind of bland after such a grandiose opening, and it was late last night so I got no further than that. I'm gearing up with old sci-fi in an attempt to make it through reading a Heinlein novel without throwing it against the wall (which has been the outcome of every previous attempt I've made at reading Heinlein, though I'm told perhaps I started with the wrong books as they were later in his career) Anyhow. Nothing to say really. I just enjoyed the really silly opening.
