At New Tammany College, a selection of words from John Banville's novel The Untouchable. (Hat tip, Maxine Clarke.)
Simony and casuist should be familiar to anyone raised Catholic. In Conrad's Nostromo, a rowboat in fog emerges into "a recrudescence of obscurity."
Thanks for the link, Frank!
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing, reading three Banville novels back to back and taking note of the best words, is that it becomes apparent what John Banville's favourite words are. I enjoyed the same experience reading Anthony Burgess's Enderby novels - one of his favourite words there was borborygym.
Boy, there's one I haven't heard in a while - maybe not since I read Enderby. I see nothing wrong with using odd words if there are used precisely. When I read Banville his vocabulary always strikes as simply right. It really doesn't draw attention to itself. The plain style, after all, isn't the only style. One of my favorite lines is Sir Thomas Browne's "... Charles V will never live within two Methusalahs of Hector." Now that's dense!
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