"The wind smote him like fists." (p. 196)
Wind punches Yamamura as it had whipped Dahut. Next, he gets the impression that the ship dancing crazily and the sea roaring wrathfully are trying to shake the murderer loose. When, battling the elements, Yamamura has pulled the murderer back on board, the wind suddenly becomes "...less violent...," (p. 198) although this is in accordance with the weather forecast...
Wind and weather seem to comment and even to intervene. In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King of Ys Tetralogy, Ysans know the Dread of Lir. (Scroll down.) Such dreadful natural forces were, very naturally, personified.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Despite all we have toilsomely learned about the forces moving on or acting upon Earth, our knowledge probably still seems too abstract and remote to prevent many people from personifying these forces as actual, sentient, sometimes malignant beings.
But I KNOW the winds and waves are not manifestations of powerful beings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But what we are doing here is appreciating the literary expression of an experience and an impression. We are not proposing a scientific explanation. It is possible to be too literal.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I fear being TOO literal minded is one of my weaknesses!
Ad astra! Sean
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