Pithy, evocative imagery in three-legged microcosms of meaning. Having coined the term ‘triologism’ I believe this to be the only collection of these tum-tee-tum phrases in the universe. Updated Tuesdays … triologism day!
Tide-swayed fronds
An otter's eye view of the world, with its human connections and its human-free watery paradise.
Maxwell's classic account of...
A voice to clear the head
Trying to imagine a 'head-clearing voice' - is it a singing, shouting or speaking voice? Or is it just...
God-trodden chaos
This vivid re-telling of Christ's story evokes a human hunger for unity and enlightenment, and freedom from 'God-trodden chaos'. This...
Prawn-coloured motes
Having spent his long and entire adult life ensconced in the castle walls of Gormenghast, Flay, now dismissed, finds a...
Light-hearted colours
What a delightful way to describe a palette of colours: light-hearted. What hues would it include? Sky blue, dancing fuchsia,...
Sand-traced effigy
Thoughts are intangible and yet can prove more indelible than things physically wrought. The idea of a sandy effigy effaced...
Star-shivery water
Tarka the Otter is a magical book and stars sparkle in the sky and the water, here shivering with them. ...
Bubble-whitened water
Bubbles blow and roll through Williamson's prose, through the ebullition of both water and otters. Otters blow bubbles when they...
Wind-besieged islands
The North Sea is full of such islands and Nicolson finds in a place of 'sun-trap warmth', sheltered from the...
Wind-slabbed snow
Crunching home through snow after a winter walk, we found ourselves on such wind-slabs, albeit more modest in scale, Swiss...
High-perched asylum
In his acknowledgements, Leigh Fermor thanks a number of people for 'kindness and haven during restless literary displacements', and it...
Pleasure-craving nature
Even in the depths of her despair, when she learns that her handsome squire won't marry her, her focus is...
Winter-defying hawk
What majesty in this triologism - a hawk thriving despite a New England winter.
'The warmest springs hardly allow me...
Briars and birds
Trying to think what species of birds would yield a rainbow of wings, in England. Robins, blue-tits and finches, perhaps.
...
Broad-leaved sycamores and weary-hearted women
George Eliot writes sensitively and movingly of the early manifestation of Methodism. She wrote Adam Bede around 1850 but set...
Gently-swelling meadow
George Eliot lived during the height of the Industrial Revolution, with several of her books being set earlier in its...
Wave-worn boulders
An alliterative view of things water-worn over time. I have a burgeoning collection of sea-smoothed pebbles and fragments of glass...
Tissue-thin vulnerability
Among other things, Sea Room is a study of human strategies for survival over millennia, of the fragility and tenacity...
Remember to eat
An amazingly intricate way to remind you to eat, no matter what the gods are hurling at you. Artemis is the...
The walls and towers of Troy
Three triologisms demonstrating the strength of the protective masonry encasing Troy; the first being in the mouth of Agamemnon, chief...
© Beatrice Otto 2020 - design & content unless otherwise stated - all rights reserved
Interesting! Your triologisms remind me of the two-word kennings in Beowulf.