Wednesday, 13 November 2024

Three Whispering Breezes

A breeze whispers on the planet called "Good Luck":

Confrontation And Conclusion In "The Pirate"

- in the legendary city of Ys:

Pathetic Fallacy And Pagan Experience

- on the future Earth:

Ghosts, Gods, Time And The Milky Way

- and in many other times and places but these are the only three that I found when I searched the blog just now. 

On Good Luck, Trevelyan asks a question and a breeze whispers while he awaits an answer. It emphasizes the fact that he does not receive an answer so that then he proceeds to the next stage of the confrontation:

"'Very well,' he said..." (p. 163)

The wind, or in this case the breeze, serves the roles of punctuation and of background accompaniment. Poul Anderson's prose would be almost silent without it. 

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And a stark contrast to Asimov's works, which focuses almost entirely on what his characters say to each other. Asimov seldom rises to anything like lyric background description, an exception being the beginning of Chapter 22 of FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE, "Death on Neotrantor."

Ad astra! Sean