"Pugnacious" Prose

[Rumple Foreskin]

If lucky, every once in awhile we come across a descriptive passage in a novel that seems so right it's impossible to resist sharing it with others. That's the case with this excerpt from Chapter One of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume; then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt. They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye.[/I]

I was especially taken with her describing of the woman's breasts as, "pugnacious." IMHO, it's both imaginative and spot-on. I'd have probably gone with something a tad more prosaic, such as: "stuck out like the healights on a '35 Packard."

It you have a favorite bit of descriptive prose, please share.

Rumple Foreskin