The Peregrines escape from their island under cover of a gale:
"...the blackness was like a rush of great waters. He heard the trees shouting; the wind snarled in their branches and they answered with a gallows groan.
"They stumbled to the beach. When they came out on the shore, the wind was a blow in the face. Briefly, the ragged clouds tore open to show a half-moon between far pale stars." (p. 172)
Elemental activity accompanies frenetic human activity. Darkness is compared to a rushing river. Trees shout. Wind snarls and strikes faces. Wind and branches converse. Gallows groans remind escapees that they might not survive although they hope to fly between stars.
We are grateful that Poul Anderson did not merely write that they ran down to the beach.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! But this is the kind of lengthy description which makes some readers impatient. And I would try to argue with such persons that they were being too impatient, that it is good for
writers to carefully describe scenes and backgrounds. Not everything needs to be terse and monosyllabic!
Ad astra! Sean
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