"...on a day when the wind came brawling off the western sea, light and cloud shadow raced each other across the world, waves marched on the bay, and on the puddles from last night's rain. The forest tossed and shouted; stubblefields lay yellow and the meadow grass had become hay. A flight of storks went under the sun, Egypt bound. The air was chill, with smells of salt, smoke, and horses."
-Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTER NINETEEN, p. 170.
Colors, sounds and chill air with mixed smells: a four senses scene.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What caught my eye here was this line: "The forest tossed and shouted;..." I have seen, many times, descriptions of the winds tossing trees, but not that a forest can SHOUT. It should make readers wonder how a forest can "shout."
Sean
Sean,
It sounds appropriate.
Paul.
Sean and Paul:
When you hear a really strong wind rushing through the trees, "shout" becomes a VERY compelling term for it. I don't even have a real forest, just a line of trees behind my condominium building, but sometimes the wind roars through their branches and I've compared the sound to a freight train passing.
Kaor, DAVID and Paul!
David, your explanation does makes the word used by Anderson here much more plausible.
Paul, after David's comments above, I agree.
Sean
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