Oooo I really liked this revelation. I’ve been contemplating what you referenced earlier in the story. Now it makes more sense. I’m liking the direction.
Another amazing chapter! The fish traps are mentioned in Plato’s Timaeus in which likens the human organs to these kinds of traps, with their valves.
The horse she takes to the water is not named. I was wondering what happened to the horse she broke in the earlier chapter? If you did say what happened to that mustang, my apologies. It wouldn’t be the first time I misremembered a detail. And, now that I think of it, it wouldn’t make sense for her to suddenly be riding a new horse during her journey.
I’m impressed with your usage of very precise verbs for things equestrian: to tack, to hobble. Since I know nothing about horses, someone like me writing this scene would have ended up using unnecessarily silly constructs: “She put the tacking on the horse” or “She applied the hobbles.”--Did I ever tell you the story of how Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary famously defined the pastern of a horse as its knee? A woman challenged him on this point, and asked why he had said that. His response was, “Ignorance, Madam...Pure ignorance.”
The conversation about losing power is something I’ve discussed with my male friends for decades. Of course it’s not a uniquely male attribute, but it’s a crucial dimension to understanding male behavior, I think, and its often something roiling about so deeply in their psyche that they don’t know how to express the emotion. For example, the sex act itself is a complete loss of power: complete chaos. I think it’s why some men react so viscerally to it--sometimes negatively--as in retroactively despising it almost immediately after it is over. People who ignore this or simplify it by calling it “toxic masculinity” are missing the point.
Two minor suggestions:
* I think “copse” would read more smoothly than “coppice”.
* In the penultimate sentence of your first paragraph I would recommend removing the word “still”. It’s not necessary, and, without it, you have a nice line of poetry. Read it out loud and you’ll see what I mean, and you’ll also see how the word “still” interrupts the flow.
Oooo I really liked this revelation. I’ve been contemplating what you referenced earlier in the story. Now it makes more sense. I’m liking the direction.
Another amazing chapter! The fish traps are mentioned in Plato’s Timaeus in which likens the human organs to these kinds of traps, with their valves.
The horse she takes to the water is not named. I was wondering what happened to the horse she broke in the earlier chapter? If you did say what happened to that mustang, my apologies. It wouldn’t be the first time I misremembered a detail. And, now that I think of it, it wouldn’t make sense for her to suddenly be riding a new horse during her journey.
I’m impressed with your usage of very precise verbs for things equestrian: to tack, to hobble. Since I know nothing about horses, someone like me writing this scene would have ended up using unnecessarily silly constructs: “She put the tacking on the horse” or “She applied the hobbles.”--Did I ever tell you the story of how Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary famously defined the pastern of a horse as its knee? A woman challenged him on this point, and asked why he had said that. His response was, “Ignorance, Madam...Pure ignorance.”
The conversation about losing power is something I’ve discussed with my male friends for decades. Of course it’s not a uniquely male attribute, but it’s a crucial dimension to understanding male behavior, I think, and its often something roiling about so deeply in their psyche that they don’t know how to express the emotion. For example, the sex act itself is a complete loss of power: complete chaos. I think it’s why some men react so viscerally to it--sometimes negatively--as in retroactively despising it almost immediately after it is over. People who ignore this or simplify it by calling it “toxic masculinity” are missing the point.
Two minor suggestions:
* I think “copse” would read more smoothly than “coppice”.
* In the penultimate sentence of your first paragraph I would recommend removing the word “still”. It’s not necessary, and, without it, you have a nice line of poetry. Read it out loud and you’ll see what I mean, and you’ll also see how the word “still” interrupts the flow.