Saturday 29 July 2017

Sunrise And Sunset

A sunrise:

"Above the cliffs, a few eastern cliffs turned red."
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT p. 291.

For discussion of this sunrise, see:

Colourful Ambiguous Symbolism
Red In The Morning

A sunset:

"The sun was low in the west, turning the thin clouds there crimson, and the sky was darkening towards night eastward behind the distant line of Blue Mountains. At least it would drop to decent sleeping weather later. The air here was too dry to hold the heat long.
"The end of a long summer day..."
-SM Stirling, The Tears Of The Sun (New York, 2012), Chapter Twelve, p. 338.

In Stirling's passage, we note:

three colour words, "crimson," "darkening" and "Blue," even if the mountains are not really blue;
an appeal to at least one other sense, "dry" and "heat";
that always evocative phrase, "...a long summer day..."

At any time of the year, we can remember or imagine long summer days.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Very Andersonian, this descriptive use of colors and senses by Stiring! Which is one reason why I appreciate his books.

Sean