Poul Anderson wrote in a private letter to Alexei Panshin that:
"'A useful device - I think it was first enunciated by Flaubert - is to invoke at least three senses in every scene...'" (VI., p. 141)
We have noted this device in Anderson's works. Panshin informs us that the opening scene of Anderson's "No Truce With Kings" presents in about six hundred words:
shouts
stamping boots
fists thumping tables
clashing cups
shadows
stirring banners
winking light
wind
rain
a loosened collar
singing
chillness
darkness
clattering feet
more
I could go back upstairs, find the story and ascertain what more there are. Do you want to?
This is one way to "...make writing real and vivid." (p. 142) Vance, Bradbury and Anderson were sensual; Heinlein was functional.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I was reminded, yet again, of how disappointingly flat and colorless I eventually found the stories of Asimov to be. Except on rare occasions like the opening paragraphs of "Death on Neotrantor" in FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE, he seldom rose to anything like lyrical and interesting prose. Truthfully, at least in his novels, Asimov was barely even functional.
Merry Christmas! Sean
I picked up that trick from Poul...
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