Sunday 18 November 2018

Thunder

"The last thing he heard was thunder. It sounded like the hoofs of horses bearing westward the Hunnish midnight."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 374, p. 465.

As we have noticed before, Huns and thunder approach together.

"He went into his room and shut the door, and immediately afterwards I heard him turn the key in the lock.
"Overhead there was a low rumbling of thunder. The storm was coming nearer.
"I went to bed with a slightly uneasy feeling induced by the sound of that turning key.
"It suggested, very faintly, sinister possibilities."
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 155.

Here, thunder and murder approach together. Thunder plays an identical role in both narratives.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

When it comes to mysteries, I was never that much of a fan of Agatha Christie, despite reading a fair number of her books. I was fonder of, say, John Dickson Carr's books or Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries.

Sean