When Aleka reflects that sophotects do not proliferate like human beings but strive for ethereal, intellectual growth, she shivers but the sentence does not end there:
"Aleka shivered in the bleak wind." (p. 144)
Right on cue, when Aleka's thoughts are bleak, the wind is bleak. The pathetic fallacy of the wind apparently commenting on the action is as much a part of Poul Anderson's prose as is his punctuation, indeed as is the full stop that ends the sentence. This ubiquity of pathetic fallacies and particularly of the sympathetic wind must have a cumulative subliminal effect on readers who neither consciously notice it nor pause to reflect. We read on without pausing in order to learn what Aleka does next but the text is richer than it would have been if her reflection on sophotects had merely been followed by the next sentence:
"She confronted the door and spoke her name." (ibid.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Because, compared to human beings, the sophotects were so cold and unalive. I can see why Aleka shivered!
Ditto, what you said about how Anderson wrote! Albeit, like all writers, he has some writerly oddities, like his idiosyncratic use of "glade." Additional examples would be his frequent use of "trod" or "hold" (for "wait" or "stop").
Ad astra! Sean
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