Some Sounds At Sea

The Merman's Children, Book Three, VII.

We have read and reread this novel before and this time are focusing our attention not on the contents of the characters' conversations but instead on the rich background details that are always present in Poul Anderson's works. We encourage Poul Anderson Appreciation readers to read or reread Anderson's novels and stories rather than to expect synopses of them here although sometimes we provide those as well.

Apart from the dialogue, the sounds are:

gulls mew;

waves squelp;

Inuit women in an umiak and men in kayaks shout and laugh;

one yells when he spies the two naked swimming merfolk.

Inuit and merfolk converse and, during a significant pause:

"Wind blew, waves trundled, the boat swayed in shrill cold." (p. 159)

Well, we know by now that, in Anderson's works, the wind will almost always underline any conversational silence. When the single white woman among the Inuit questions the merman and -woman:

"...it was as if the blond girl spoke through silence..." (ibid.)

For the content of the dialogue, we refer readers to Anderson's text.