English Language & Usage Asked by bxw on April 20, 2021
The following is a quote from Philip Pullman’s ‘La Belle Sauvage’:
- "It’s a present for her," said Malcolm, and thrust it in among Lyra’s blankets.
Now, to me, this sentence doesn’t really parse, so I guess I’m looking for an explanation of why we can continue the sentence from a dialogue tag in this manner. If we replace "said Malcolm" with "Malcolm said", then it seems to make a bit more sense, because "said" is a verb, so it’s analogous to "Kelly ran and jumped".
But what I’d really expect is something like "said Malcolm, and he thrust…"
What’s going on here? Or is it just poetic license? It’s not as if it will really throw the reader or anything. I didn’t notice it the first time I read this chapter.
"Malcolm said" and "said Malcolm" are grammatically equivalent so there's no problem with Malcolm being the implicit subject of "and thrust it in..."
That said, it does read awkwardly. Literary agent Noah Lukeman, in his book The First Five Pages, comments that the "said he" construction is a bit archaic (and advises that authors pick one of "said he" and "he said" for dialog tags and stick with that for the entirety of the work. Also, as you noted, the implied subject in the second half of the sentence is a bit of a stumbling block.
It's been a long time since I've read Pullman, but I seem to recall that he was prone to writing in a bit of an archaic style, though, so this would be typical for his writing.
Correct answer by Donald Hosek on April 20, 2021
A couple of points. First, the sentence needs to be read in the context of the story. Then, I think that Donald is correct I stating that Pullman's style in this story is deliberately archaic. More importantly, to my mind, is the way the sentence scans. Speak it aloud. Then substitute 'Said Malcolm' for 'Malcolm said'. It's lost the flow because the alliteration has virtually disappeared. The alliteration is on the letter 's'. In the original, the alliteration flows right through the phrase. If you reword it as 'Malcolm said'. the 'M' breaks the alliterative flow
Answered by Sunnyjohn on April 20, 2021
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