Digression: Examples – Dale E. Lehman

Compiled by Dale E. Lehman

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities; Bantam Classic Edition, 1981, pp. 47-48

A digression during the description of Tellson’s Bank on Temple Bar:

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention—it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse—but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson’s in its day, like greater places of business, its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor had, in a rather significant manner.

The protangonist Montag has become a fugitive. While crossing a road at night, a car nearly runs him down. In the aftermath, Bradbury inserts this digression:

That wasn’t the police, he thought.

He looked down the boulevard. It was clear now. A carful of children, all ages, God knew, from twelve to sixteen, out whistling, yelling, hurrahing, had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, and simply said, “Let’s get him,” not knowing he was the fugitive Mr. Montag, simply a number of children out for a long night of roaring five or six hundred miles in a few moonlit hours, their faces icy with wind, and coming home or not coming at dawn, alive or not alive, that made the adventure.

They would have killed me, thought Montag, swaying, the air still torn and stirring about him in dust, touching his bruised cheek. For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me.

At the end of chapter 6, Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent have been captured by the Vogons. The Vogon captain plans to throw them out into space, after reading them some of his poetry. Chapter 7 opens with a digression:

Vogon Poetry is of course the third worse in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem, “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning,” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favorite Bedtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.

The very worse poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.

At her trial, protagonist Emily is listening to Mr. Babcot, a house inspector, who is being questioned by the prosecution. This digression occurs near the start of Babcot’s testimony:

She opened her eyes and looked up as Mr. Babcot sat in the witness stand. She spied a piece of his hair that he must have missed during his comb-over bobbing up and down on the top of his head. It reminded her of Alfalfa and between that and his quivering, high-pitched voice, she suddenly felt sorry for the man. Sorry that he’d been dragged out to her trial when all he wanted to do was inspect homes. She looked up at his comb-over and watched it bounce, deciding to focus on that while he spoke. It distracted her from what was really happening.

A brief digression when Melody is asked about the quality of her relationship with her husband Bernard:

Abigail smiled. “You two are really close, aren’t you? How long have you been together?”

Her mind on the party, Melody almost thought she meant Paul Revere Plaskett but figured it out in time. “Twelve years. We met in the mall one day. I was just twenty and he was twenty-four. We ran into each other when…“

Oops. She’d better not tell that part, since the stolen merchandise secreted on both their persons had spilled all over the floor, which brought security guards running, which led to some really imaginative storytelling before they were let go. Thank God those guards had taken to Melody like, well, like everyone else in the world.

“… when we looked into each other’s eyes and fell in love,” she finished with a happy sigh.