These words filled Daniel with a foreboding that turned out to be full justified: by the time the sun rose, they had fetched the dead man from the gaol, bought him back out to the cottage, and carefully cut his head off. Charles Comstock was rousted from bed and ordered to dissect the corpse, as a lesson in anatomy (and as a way of getting rid of it). Meanwhile, Hooke and Wilkins connected the head's wind-pipe to a large set of fireplace-bellows, so that they could blow air through the voice-box. Daniel was detailed to saw off the top of the skull and get rid of the brains so that he could reach in through the back and get hold of the soft palate, tongue, and other meaty bits reponsible for making sounds. With Daniel thus acting as sort of a meat puppeteer, and Hooke maniupulating the lips and nostrils, and Wilkins plying the bellows, they were able to make the head speak. When his speaking-parts were squished into one configuration he made a very clear "O" sound, which Daniel (very tired now) found just a bit unsettling. Wilkins wrote down an O-shaped character, reflecting the shape of the man's lips. This experiment went on all day, Wilkins reminding the others, when they showed signs of tiredness, that this rare head wouldn't keep forever--as if that weren't already obvious. They made the head utter thirty-four different sounds. For each one of them, Wilkins drew out a letter that was sort of a quick freehand sketch of the positions of lips, tongue, and other bits respondible for making that noise. Finally they urned the head over to Charles Comstock, to continue his anatomy lesson, and Daniel went to bed for a series of rich nightmares.
Prose like this is why Neal Stephenson is one of the most entertaining novelists ever. (Especially the dry bits of humor here and there)
Posted by Nils Blutig at October 4, 2003 08:42 PM | TrackBack