Words I Wish I’d Written: Angelfood Cake

Last updated on: June 19, 2014 at 3:00 am by willduquette

Words I Wish I’d Written: Angelfood Cake 2014-06-18T18:56:35-05:00 willduquette

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Mouser made a very small parry in carte so that the thrust of the bravo from the east went past his left side by only a hair’s breath. He instantly riposted. His adversary, desperately springing back, parried in turn in carte. Hardly slowing, the tip of the Mouser’s long, slim sword dropped under that parry with the delicacy of a princess curtsying and then leaped forward and a little upward, the Mouser making an impossibly long-looking lunge for one so small, and went between two scales of the bravo’s armored jerkin and between his ribs and through his heart and out his back as if all were angelfood cake.

— Fritz Leiber, Swords and Deviltry

Fritz Leiber was the quintessential author of sword and sorcery, and his best known work concerns the heroic (?) duo Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I was re-reading the story “Ill-Met in Lankhmar”, in which our heroes first begin working together, and was struck the above lovely passage. Fight scenes are every bit as common in current fantasy as in past days, though they tend to draw on the vocabulary of the martial arts rather than that of fencing as this does; but rarely do I see a fight described more clearly and concisely than this. And then there are the rhetorical flourishes: a sword drops “with the delicacy of a princess curtsying” and then goes through the bravo “as if all were angelfood cake”.

Modern prose is more gritty, more in the moment; Leiber intentionally stands back a bit, and so has the opportunity for this kind of thing. Lovely.

Incidentally, the monkey doesn’t represent the author of the words I wish I’d written; it represents the one doing the wishing.

Words I Wish I'd Written

fritz leiber

swords and deviltry

Previous Post

June 18, 2014

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats—Or Does It?

Next Post

June 20, 2014 Mississippi Squirrel Revival!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Admin App o' the Morning Ask the Dogmat Believing Thomas Bits of Fiction Blasts from the Past Bootstrapping the Interior Life Catholic Mom Christian Living Deep Thoughts from the Doghouse Dominicana Evangelii Gaudium Interviews It Was A Dark and Stormy Night Links to This and That Lumen Fidei Meme Watch On Writing Operation Gratitude Pedant Errant Photography Quill Random Barkings S'Mary's World Shakers of Salt Software Development The Dog Whistler The Dogmat Sez Third Orders Thomas Aquinas Uncategorized Vikings at Dinos Woof Guide to Cinema Woof Guide to History Woof Guide to Literature Woof Guide to Obscure Catholic Music Woof Guide to Philosophy Woof Guide to Popular Music Woof Guide to Technology Woof Guide to Theology Words I Wish I'd Written Works For Me

Select a Month September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Buy a field while the enemy besieges the city? I did this to demonstrate that houses and fields would again be bought in this land. Where was this property?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Shiloh Bethlehem Jerusalem Anathoth