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!
Star-shivery water
Tarka the Otter is a magical book and stars sparkle in the sky and the water, here shivering with them. ...
Half-comprehended notions
I remember childhood dreams and hauntings of 'half-comprehended notions': cold war threats of nuclear annhilation, and being told the Soviet...
Sand-traced effigy
Thoughts are intangible and yet can prove more indelible than things physically wrought. The idea of a sandy effigy effaced...
Marrow-freezing
Jane Eyre, first as a child and later as a woman, is subjected to a number of 'marrow-freezing incidents' some...
Siegfried-haunted Drachenfels
An image from a Caspar David Friedrich painting.
'The country sped downstream at a great pace and the Siebengebirge and...
Weather-fretted Abbots
Assuming these are carved in stone, though my first reading had me picturing a human 'weather-fretted' abbot.
Wishing you more...
Outlandish-looking grammar
Although I've managed to master a couple of foreign languages, outlandish-looking grammar has so far stymied my repeated, and repeatedly...
Brave and courageous
Xiong means ‘male’, ‘grand’, or 'having great power or influence', and is used in the word for ‘hero’. Here, combined...
Storm-nibbled heads
A thousand years of storm wear wipes the faces from the stone heads decorating Gormenghast stormenghast, eyes and features flattened...
The emptiness of exile
Flay has spent his whole life - a long one - in the stiflingly familiar circuits and rituals of serving...
Life-long joy
One of the curious things about Hetty is that George Eliot shows her no mercy, and inspires none in us. ...
Sun-refracting facet
Mani is a stark and unforgiving landscape, conveyed with sharp-edged precision by Leigh Fermor.
'But there were no bridges or...
Of wine-blue water
The first time I read of the wine-blue Greek sea, I was baffled. However, I took a second translation to...
Limb-consuming Scylla
I appreciated Nicolson's summing up the twin terrors as two aspects of the female threat.
'After the monstrous-beautiful Sirens, Odysseus...
Thickly-foliaged cedar
Another reference to the magnficent cedar, a source of scented sap and sunset-watching shelter.
'The day grew dim. They...
Like the pigeons in St Mark’s
An unusual way to capture ever-present memories, likening them to pigeons underfoot in the Piazza San Marco, cooing and strutting...
All-seeing eyes
A fictitious dedication in the novel, imbuing its artist-narrator with an almost godly omnivision, although he doesn't portray himself as...
Reed-fringed banks
An image of lazy summer afternoons messing about on rivers.
Source: Arthur Ransome, Coot Club (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009 (1934)),...
Moonacre Manor
This white horse flits in and out of the eponymous story: like the moon, illuminating when visible, but otherwise elusive. ...
Many-coloured sea
This simple line from a journal, a near haiku of beauty.
'The moon, a many-coloured sea and sky.' ...
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Interesting! Your triologisms remind me of the two-word kennings in Beowulf.