-Rogue Sword, CHAPTER VI, pp. 99-100.
"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.
"High is heaven and holy."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT p. 662.
The banners are lifted before a battle between Catalans and Byzantines in the early fourteenth century whereas the snowpeaks flame on a colonized extra-solar planet centuries in the future. There is no direct connection between the two sunrises. In fact, they are different suns. Only a reader of these two novels by Poul Anderson is able to notice and appreciate the distant literary echo - if that is what we want to call it. Reading the first passage reminded me of the second.
Although I would never have written that the sun shouted, I expect a writer like Poul Anderson to create powerful metaphors and, of course, will now be alert to see whether he uses this particular metaphor again.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I can see how, on a very clear day, a fiercely bright rising sun could be described as "shouting."
The WAY Poul Anderson uses language is a big reason why I came to prefer his works over those of contemporaries like Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. But I do think Heinlein's pre STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND stories remains worthy of being read.
Ad astra! Sean
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