How do you feel about the interrogative tone?
I recently read a review of a book called The Interrogative Tone? The gimmick with this book is that every sentence is a question? Would you like to read an excerpt from the book?
Are your emotions pure? Are your nerves adjustable? How do you stand in relation to the potato? Should it still be Constantinople? Does a nameless horse make you more nervous or less nervous than a named horse? In your view, do children smell good? If before you now, would you eat animal crackers? Could you lie down and take a rest on a sidewalk? Did you love your mother and father, and do Psalms do it for you? If you are relegated to last place in every category, are you bothered enough to struggle up? Does your doorbell ever ring? Is there sand in your craw? Could Mendeleyev place you correctly in a square on a chart chart of periodic identities, or would you resonate all over the board? How many push-ups can you do?
What would it be like if more novels were like this? Would it create a swirling sense of uncertainty?
IT WAS a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen? Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him?
Or what about this? Does it just make everything sound non-committal?
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since?
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had?”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that?
Or a more modern example?
The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through? You could feel it: something terrible was about to happen? The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star? Gust after gust of disorder? Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end? No children in the yards here?
Or perhaps more mainstream?
Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulter archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery? He lunged for the nearest painting her could see, a Caravaggio? Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Sauniere collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas?
As he had anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading the entrance to the suite? The parquet floor shook? Far off, an alarm began to ring?
And finally, do you find this video of Taylor Mali speaking interrogatively merely good, or in fact great?
