Black Clouds, Skirling Wind And Stinging Scud

"Virgin Planet."

"Cloud masses piled blackly out of the west, wind skirled, and scud stung his face. He felt the weariness of being hunted." (p. 95)

An Andersonian description of nature becomes a pathetic fallacy. Davis Bertram is simultaneously oppressed and wearied both by his human hunters and by the scud in his face. Of course these clouds are not white but black and this wind does not sigh but skirls. Pulp fiction readers following Poul Anderson's action narrative probably do not reflect on his descriptive and evocative prose but are nevertheless affected by it. I do not summarize the story, which blog readers can read, but pause to appreciate these and other rich details and there are always more such minutiae to find.

The action continues. Davis thankfully retires to a bedchamber but is all too predictably interrupted and that passes beyond the scope of the present post.