Task 1.2 - Anaylsis of Geoffrey of Vinsauf

First, put in your own words what Geoffrey is saying.

Geoffrey is saying that I have no hope to describe a dumpy Chinese guy like that. Heh, just kidding.

Geoffrey is talking about the ideal woman and what nature would create of the ideal woman. Her head should be spherical, her hair glowing, her eyebrows dark, her nose straight and moderately sized (I had to laugh at that one), her eyes bright, and her face should (at least I take him to say), be milky-white (as all of her skin should be), but melting into rosiness and fullness of color. She should have a small but brightly colored mouth, full (but moderately so--I can't help laughing at this) lips which should be very full of color. Her teeth should be white, straight, and homogeneous in size, and he breath should smell good--even sweet. He chin should be smooth and well built as if it were sculpted. Her neck should be like a pillar. Her shoulders, like everything else, should be a balance--neither sloping nor awkwardly rising--just gracefully straight. Everything on her should be graceful and proportioned. Her limbs--legs and arms, should be just sort of flowing out of her. She should be extremely thin. Her feet should be small.

Second, note the interesting ways he goes about saying these things. What structures does he employ? That is, what order does he put the description, and what does he include? What does he leave out?

One interesting thing that he seems to do is leave out any specifics. Instead every part described is vague. Instead of giving specifics, he simply appeals to certain phrases. For example, as I noted in my summary, he never says specifically what the length of this person's arm is, or what her shoulders really look like. Instead of specifics, he believes balance and moderation is the most beautiful, so he leans on words such as these and emphasizes these sort of things. Rather than say anything substantial about her chin, he just says it is as if a sculptor made it. This is what jumps out to me the most--his appeal to balance and his use of vagueness. I think the point (and I could be wrong here), is use the readers own mind to construct what he believes the ideal woman looks like, merely prompting him with descriptive terms like her arms are "charming and graceful in length". This actually says nothing about her arms, but I already have an idea in my mind of what a perfect, gracefully flowing arm is like, so the image just comes to me.

The order of his description is top to bottom, starting with her hair and ending with her feet. I'm not sure what the significance of this is other than that it is the way most people look at a person (well depending on what they were wearing, maybe you'd start at other places...). If I were to do a description like this though, I would start off describing her eyes and then the rest of her face, mentioning her hair as framing it all. Then I'd work my way down. This is the way I tend to look at people first--I usually don't start at their hair.

He goes into great detail regarding the face, even talking about the separation of the eyebrows. Her face, in fact, seems to glow. After the great detail of the face, specifics drop off, everything else sort of flowing down from there. After describing the waist (which struck me as a little obscenely thin--"so slim that a hand may encircle it"? Ew.) he says that the "other parts" are left of to the imagination, but he assures us that they are wondrous. Other than that, he doesn't really leave anything out as far as I can tell. He seems very fixed on the physical aspect and gracefulness, and doesn't bother to describe anything that might hint at personality.

Task 1.1 - Describing people

I'm not even sure what his name is, but he and I sit and talk the night away when I go for Little HotPot.

He is a short man and looks reasonably young--I would guess perhaps in his early thirties. Despite his endless work hours (up at 6 AM to work one job and then comes back to help his friend with Little HotPot, not getting home until past midnight) he actually looks quite healthy. He has watery red eyes, and dresses only in black (at least that is all I have ever seen him wear). However, the most distinctive part about him is his smile. I find his very hard to read at times and some times I think he is mad or irritated with me because he rarely greets me warmly when I first arrive, but rather hustles me to a table. When he finally sits down though, and tries to speak English to me that is when I really know he is glad to see me. In halting broken, but happy English he attempts a bit of small talk, and that is when he smiles. I don't think I've ever seen him laugh, but when he smiles, the eyes crinkle just a bit at the edges and and his face gradually splits into a wide grin. That is when I know I won't be having a minute's peace and chances are I'll be drinking some baiju out of a bowl with him.



Personal comments: Wow, that sucked. I can't decide if I really do just suck at describing or I am just not familiar with the system yet. I thought I was a little better than that. I kind of feel like I just go tossed into the exercising right away with barely any preface or forewarning. I didn't even really understand why I was doing this. Maybe that was the point? I dunno.

Edit: After reading the following paragraph I understand a little better what was going on. Maybe I described his personality too much. Maybe I just didn't describe enough. I guess I wasn't really clear how much I should write.

Edit again: Oops, I'm retarded--it said one page.

Okay, here are my thoughts. I found the task difficult because I didn't think enough direction was given. Maybe I'm being whiny, but I didn't know if this was like what I should be expected to write in a book, or if I was supposed to give a full, physical expose on him. I guess what I had the most difficulty was where to start. As you can see I started by writing about his height, however the direction I took was more one of describing character. So the height aspect seems a little stupid to begin with. I guess I needed to begin with something. He really isn't even that short. He's short, but he's about average for a Chinese guy. Honestly, he was the first guy to spring to mind and I had spent hours with him, so I assumed I could write about him. After thinking for a few minutes I didn't really know where to start. He just seemed so average for a Chinese guy. What really pulled me in was his personality, so maybe that is why I focused so heavily on it. Most Chinese people are (at least come off as being) very shy or very apathetic. It was his interest in the language that really caught my attention. And the fact that he gave me free food every day, but eventually that made me uncomfortable because I felt like I was just cheating him and I never got to pay him back. Anyway, that is getting really off-topic. The point is--why do I suck so bad at physical descriptons. I guess he's rosy cheeked, kind of fat, but not too bad. Has...black hair...just like every other Chinese guy. It is cut short on the sides and then fades into--I'm not really sure what to call it, but it is the general hair-cut I wear. Short on the sides, longer on top. He also does a little spiky thing in the front. Not overly spiky, like with gel and all, but just like of combed up. Ha...look at me try to redeem myself by attempting a physical description in my reflection. To those who can read this, I hope you can tell this is pretty much stream-of-consciousness writing and my stream of consciousness goes everywhere. Anyways, to get back to the basic questions asked in the exercise reflection: What parts were easy, what was hard, and what did I learn from it? The whole thing was pretty tough, but as I said, that is probably due to the fact that I a) didn't read the directions well enough and b) I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. I wonder if you can try this again, or if it is one of those things that once you know how it is supposed to work, you can't do it again. I think I could do better on a second go. What did I learn? Read the directions carefully before proceeding. Also I learned that physical descriptions come very difficult to me. I guess in a way, everyone is average to me, at least as far as writing goes. I kind of feel like I know the differences, but I feel like just emphasizing on a physical idiosycracy wouldn't really give people the right mental image. Lets say he had really rosy cheeks and I went into great detail about the cheeks--people would only be thinking about his cheeks, nothing else. Or maybe it is just the white prejudice against Asians--as they say "All Asians look the same".

Opening Post

In order to develop my writing according to Greg's principles I figure I will have to do the exercises he prescribes in his book. Since I need a place to write, and potentially people to read it, this seems as good a place as any.