Response to The Names: A Memoir by N. Scott Momaday

"In the white light a whirlwind moves far out in the plain, and afterwards there is something like a shadow on the grass, a tremor, nothing. There seems a stillness at noon, but that is an illusion: the landscape rises and falls, ringing."

I liked this phrase because it describes a setting in an extremely detailed manner, then strips it all away, as if the author is trying to convince himself of the wonders of this place, not the reader. The line "...there is something like a shadow...a tremor, nothing" is almost contradictory as it illustrates a feeling of self-doubt on the part of the author, displaying the emotions brought up by the scene instead of the emotions of the scene itself. The following line, however, is contrastingly redundant: "There seems a stillness at noon, but that is an illusion..." This emphasizes the unknown quality of the plain, the mystery of the effects of the whirlwind.