After reading Fish

I finished reading the first four chapters of "How to write a sentence" - and just felt like writing down my impressions in a sort of very condensed story - a few sentences for each chapter, then one final statement to summarize the main point - in my opinion - of each chapter.

Here it is:

Chapter 1.

There is always a sentence at the beginning of everything. A sentence is a beginning: in the sense that it is a sufficient unit, a singular point in space and time, a germ, but carrying all the value and the potentials of what is about to come. It is a story, already. I had to find one that I really liked, that I could understand, enjoy and make mine; then I was able to start my journey.

That is: the importance of the sentence, of comprehending how a sentence works, in order to be able to craft sentences.

Chapter 2 and 3.

I learned how to put one step after the other - I just learned the shape of walking, the shape of traveling, the form of any possible going - its logical form. I was ready to go anywhere, it didn’t matter where, which way and where from. I started to enjoy traveling in its form so much, that I didn’t care about its content, at some point I didn’t even know it.

That is: the importance of the logical structure that a sentence is, besides and beyond its content. Thoughts do count, but without the form, they can hardly exist at all.

Chapter 4.

I was going, and I started to get lost. The trip was now bewitching me with all its wonderful views, all the different angles things could be contemplated from… fascinating possibilities, endless colors, nuances, perspectives, joyful proliferation of infinite relationships and infinite way to perceive them. I was inebriated - and I tried to sober up, I tried to abstract, to reduce - to write a sentence with no context at all, absolutely neutral: it was impossible.

That is: there is more beyond just a well-formed sentence - there is a good sentence… or a bad one if needed. There are the infinite, powerful possibilities of rhetoric, invention, of how to convey a story in words and writing, how to capture somebody with your story, to express a point of view. Because when you start to write, you are always expressing a point of view - once again, besides and beyond the actual content. Here is where it gets interesting - and complicated.