Entry #36
Like a novel revolution is never finished489 490 491 492
489 The above is the statement as it appears in the original, in English, unpunctuated. Some interpretations, provisional, awaiting final edit, are the following:
subject-puzzle, fill in the blank: Like a novel revolution, [ ] is never finished. Trans. Q: Find the missing referent of the modifier “novel revolution”? But why?
convention, use splice: Like a novel, revolution is never finished. A comma should pierce the first two nouns, to correct the awkward notion, “novel revolution,” which anyhow, without one more noun, renders the line ungrammatical. Trans. Q: Is the speaker speaking as i) a novelist, ii) a reader of a novel, iii) a revolutionary, iv) none of the above, v) all of the above, vi) etc.?
colloquial, annoying: Like, a novel revolution is never finished. Trans. Exclamation: Basta! (Trans. Note)
490 Nonsense. There is only one logical sentence. Like a novel, revolution is never finished. Period. How brazen! What gall! The blind criminal refers without shame to the novel he has just kidnapped: Bastard! Klepto! (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
491 And yet, come to think of it, is it true—like a novel, revolution is never finished? Maybe that explains why they call them plots? In short, the scourge of police states and props of fictionists are connected, at least in dictionary entries? Ay, Raymundo: basta na! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
492 Aha! Just as I thought. English keeps creeping into the memoir. Excuse me once again if I disappear from these pages for a while until I finish re-reading with a fine-toothed comb, a magnifying eye, all the Entries presented so far. PS: If you send me an email, please do not be offended by my automatic out-of-office reply: I’m re-reading. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Kalamazoo, Michigan)