Monday, 28 August 2017

Three Senses In One Sentence

How to pack three senses not only into a single passage but even into a single sentence?

"The thin air was crisp in the mouth and lungs, like a dry white wine, scented with sap and meadowsweet and an intense green savor."
-SM Stirling, The Given Sacrifice (New York, 2014), Chapter Fifteen, p. 293.

Thus, the air tastes like wine while its scent evokes the taste (savor) of green growth. Here, the color is evoked, not seen, although the passage immediately goes on to present an intensely green meadow starred with blue, crimson and gold with, beyond that, the deeper green of forest fading to blue and rising to white mountain tops. See it.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Darn! I keep missing or overlooking such ingenuity by either Stirling or Anderson. I SHOULD slow down reading to CONSCIOUSLY notice such things for its own sake. Not just hurry on to find out what happens next.

Sean