Reading Response: Amy Hempel's Tumble Home
Verbs, rhythm, and movement in a paragraph from Hempel's novella.
The vegetable garden is open to us all, and all are encouraged to cultivate something in it. Consequently, there are rows of trendy lettuce, beans climbing poles tied up like teepees, tiny yellow tomatoes shaped like lightbulbs, kale not even the moles will eat, and my own contribution—nothing so literal as a vegetable, but row after row of perfect dwarf zinnias. This is not bragging; given the soil here, you can shake the seeds out like salt on a baked potato, tamp not a spicule of soil on top of them, and up they will come to a height greater than you would want.
— Amy Hempel, from Tumble Home
One of the most striking things about Amy Hempel’s writing is her use of verbs. This paragraph from her novella Tumble Home begins with three verbs of being (copular verbs): is, are, are. Then, three phrases elide a complementizer and to be: beans (that are) climbing up poles (that are) tied up like teepees, tiny yellow tomatoes (that are) shaped like lightbulbs. The omission of the copular verb tightens the images and puts them in focus.
The paragraph has a basic structure that, when simplified, seems straightforward: The vegetable garden is X; Consequently, there are Y; This is not Z. However, the superficial plainness is deceptive. The magic lurks beneath the surface. The paragraph’s ground is cleared for those vivid descriptions, which are allowed to take up all the real estate.
The copular verbs cleanse the palate. The protagonist’s self-deprecation then comes surging to the fore: “my own contribution—nothing so literal as a vegetable.” The casting of vegetable as literal here, in a vegetable garden, is amusing. We also get a dash of humor with her dig at kale, “kale not even the moles will eat.” As I discussed in my other response about surprising descriptions, Hempel works harder than saying the obvious, “kale that nobody liked” to give us the momentary image of hungry garden moles rejecting a feast of kale.
Without effort, the protagonist has managed to plant “row after row of perfect zinnias.” She can appreciate the zinnias as “perfect,” but then disclaims her responsibility for their success. A strain of imposter syndrome; she credits not her gardening skill, but the soil for the perfection.
She also offers the success to the reader, with the general “you,” which is a different “you” than in the rest of the story. The simile “like salt on a baked potato” is a wonderful one: apt, yet fresh, and relatable. It illustrates how she assumes no credit for the zinnias, and also demonstrates the lack of care that she claims to have taken while planting them. Also, the word “spicule” in the phrase “tamp not a spicule of soil on them” is notable. It sounds like “speck,” but is more scientific, artfully precise. In addition, the verb “tamp” contrasts with the verbs of being at the beginning of the paragraph, in that it is carefully chosen, visual, and sensory.
In terms of rhythm, the separation of the particle “up” from its verb “come (up)” scans much better than the alternative. Of the six words before the conjunction “and” in the final sentence, three are prepositions: of soil on top of them. Those vowel+consonant words (referred to as “function” words, as opposed to “content words” in syntax) get absorbed into the same prosodic unit as the word that follows them, which is diagnosed by the fact that they remain unstressed; the main stress for that grouping falls on the content word. However, “up,” another very short vowel+consonant word that sometimes functions as a preposition, receives full stress: up they will come. The iambic meter is broken; both “up” and “they” get strong beats/main stresses. The alternative: “…of soil on top of them, and they will come up…” avoids stress the clash, and thus lacks the snap.
There is a deceptive amount of movement in this paragraph: from verbs of being to action verbs, from a vision of perfection to a case of imposter syndrome, and the growth of zinnias to great height. These shifts on different planes, and similar shifts like them throughout the story, are what keep the momentum going, in a subtle but highly effective way.