Is it possible to write a 156-word sentence in English that is even coherent, let alone flowing, alluring, expressive? Is it possible to put this many words in a single sentence that does not elude all understanding? Would one actually want to read it?
One of the illuminati of the last century was Sir Isaiah Berlin, who may have been the most well read individual who ever lived. Whole cultures — their authors, composers, poets, painters, ideas and periods — were at his fingertips —cultures in English, French, Russian, Hebrew, German (and, for all we know, many others). To say that he was a linguist is to note the least of his knowledge. Apparently, it took long sentences for Sir Isaiah to fit everything in. A legendary raconteur, he loved long sentences.
In the summer of 1945, Sir Isaiah was dispatched to the British embassy in Moscow for 15 weeks. It was short staffed and Berlin, born in Russia, knew Russian. His professional duties did not take much time and he greatly desired to meet Russian writers. He had the time to do so. The main writer he wanted to meet was Boris Pasternak, whom he greatly admired.
Pasternak and other Russian writers were, of course, shut off from the West by the Soviet authorities, for whom all writers were a potential fifth column. Freedom of speech — and of reading — was radically suppressed in the USSR. Thus, Pasternak really knew little about literature in the West, but imagined it in quite unrealistic dimensions, Berlin thought. “Pasternak and his friends were firmly convinced that there was a golden west where writers and critics of genius had created, and were creating, masterpieces concealed from them.” Now follows Berlin’s 156-word sentence:
“Most of the writers whom I met in 1945 and 1956, Zoshchenko, Marshak, Seifullina, Chukovsky, Vera Inber, Sel’vinsky, Kassil’ and a dozen others, and not only writers but musicians like Prokofiev, Neuhaus, Samosud, producers like Eisenstein and Tairov, painters and critics whom I met in public places, at official reception given by V.O.K.S. (the Society for promoting Cultural relations with Foreigners) and very occasionally in their own homes, philosophers whom Imet at a session of the Academy of Sciences which I was invited to address on the initiative of none other than Lazar Kaganovich, just before his fall from grace and power — all these persons were not only immensely curious about — indeed, hungry for news of — progress in arts and letters in Europe (rather less in America), but were firmly convinced that marvellous works of art and literature and thought were ceaselessly being born there, hidden from their eyes by the rigid Soviet censors.”
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