Thursday, 20 June 2024

Westering Sun

 

Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001), PART TWO, VII, 9.

Again Christian and Laurinda return to their base emulation:

"The sun over England seemed milder than for America. Westering, it sent rays through windows to glow in wood, caress marble and the leather bindings of books, explode into rainbows where they met cut glass, evoke flower aromas from a jar of potpourri." (p. 192)

Two sentence with many concentrated details: wood, marble, leather, cut glass, flower aromas. For narrative purposes, Poul Anderson need not have told us any of this but I have come to appreciate every detail about this emulated world and it is now time to switch off for the night.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Upper class literary tastes being what they were in the 1700's, those leather bound books would have included many of the Latin classics, works in French, and of course English language works like Shakespeare's plays.

Ad astra! Sean