Overwhelming sunset beauty can pull a writer bodily away from the page

Evidence

As I crossed from my cab in just now, and the long mountain shadows lay on the grass, and form and color gained new meanings, I was almost false to Hawaii; I couldn’t go on writing for the glory of the sunset, but went out and sat on a rock to see the deepening blue in the dark canyons, and the peaks becoming rose color one by one, then fading into sudden ghastliness, the awe-inspiring heights of Long’s Peak fading last. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s prior reading on silence and attention as positive presences that interrupt ordinary work. — connects to: Intense devotion to art can consume a writer’s entire life — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 558; Serene images are often constructed by writers in states of considerable fear — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive: The Complete…, 1630; A writer’s silence on the page is not silence in the mind — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 463 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Intense devotion to art can consume a writer’s entire life #corroborates (1.00) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 558
• A writer’s silence on the page is not silence in the mind #expands (1.00) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 463
• High-altitude Sierra sunsets produced an overwhelming emotional spectacle that slowed her passage #exemplifies (1.00) — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 39
• Serene images are often constructed by writers in states of considerable fear #complicates (0.90) — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive, 1630
• Prose poems thin the medium toward unmediated flow, undoing genre #expands (0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 173
• Literary works are unfinished gestures made intelligible only by their situation #complicates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 735
• Writing overcomes an author’s absence by making intention present at a distance. #complicates (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 470
• Writers should leave readers hungry and mildly estranged, not fully accommodated #complicates (0.70) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 873
• Early romantic writers experienced the sublime as terror, not pleasure #complicates (0.70) — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 16
• A writer can render un-witnessed events with sensuous precision #complicates (0.70) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 563
• Pinpointing the exact moment of happiness allows a writer to capture its full weight #complicates (0.70) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 270