14. The Complex Sentence with Interruption by Relative Clause-Non-Restrictive

My sentence:

Like faraway birthday candles, the constellation Pleiades, known to Native Americans asPigs in Heaven, rose quietly, without fanfare, without a breath.

Other examples:

"This delay (whose importance the reader will grasp later) was owing to the desire on the authorities' part to proceed impersonally and slowly, after the manner of vegetables and plants."

Jorge Luis Borges, "The Secret Miracle"

The execution of Jaromir Hladik, writer, Jew, Nazi protestor, is postponed for two weeks, during which period he dies a thousand deaths. However, on execution day, in the time between the blindfolding and the gun fire, Hladik experiences his "secret miracle", a warped perception of time that allows him to complete is unfinished, and most important work.

"The White Whale! The White Whale!" was the cry from the captain, mates and harpooners, who undeterred by fearful rumors, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass that, lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea."

Herman Melville, Moby Dick the White Whale

The Pleiades

(Note: I originally had classified this sentence as an elaborated compound sentence, confused by so many verbals and the semicolon. I now believe Melville used the semicolon to create a longer pause in the middle of such a long sentence.)

By including so much activity and description in one sentence, Melville captures the frenzy and elation felt at (what the crew thought to be) the first sighting of the White Whale, but which actually turned out to be a giant squid.