When Peter Corinth is told that his wife, Sheila, who had been unable to cope with the change, has given herself unsupervised electroshock treatment which nearly killed her but has instead restored her pre-change personality:
"Corinth was dimly aware of how live and fresh the sea wind felt in his nostrils." (p. 163)
The wind almost always accompanies a pause in the dialogue when the viewpoint character has to absorb what he has just been told. The wind is live and fresh. Sheila has restored her sanity. She has lost the enhanced intelligence which she did not want. She is mentally healthy again although she and he are now irrevocably apart. As if from a distance, he is dimly aware of the fresh wind that signifies her restored wellbeing. Readers often do not analyze how the text conveys its message.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson almost always shows that even allegedly beneficial changes comes with costs and losses.
Ad astra! Sean
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