Dead Leaves

I asked where Dominic Flandry encounters dead leaves. Sean Brooks replied that Flandry used dead leaves as a metaphor for the decline of Technic civilization and that Flandry and Miriam Abrams walked through autumnal woods. The latter case is a pathetic fallacy because Dominic and Miriam are starting an autumnal affair.

I remembered another pathetic fallacy and found it here. However, the phrase used in the text is not "dead leaves" but:

"...tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. All nature was saying farewell."
-Sir Dominic Flandry, p. 552.

I called this "explicit pathetic fallacy" because nature says farewell as Kossara goes to her death - and the reader has had ample warning that something bad is going down.

There is also irony. As the march approaches Parliament, Kossara says:

"'Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a thousand years.'" (p. 558)

Will they? We soon learn that they will sing of Kossara for more than a thousand years because she is about to die and will soon after that be canonized by her fellow Dennitzan OrthoChristians.

"A west wind..."

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

I will close for the day and the month by quoting in full an evocative descriptive passage to which I have alluded twice before (see here):

"A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale heaven. Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white, their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on. Winged animals wheeled and thinly cried. Trees around the lot and along the street that ran from it - mostly Terran, oak, elm, beech, maple - cast their outer branches about, creaked, soughed Delphic utterances though tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. Rainpuddles wandered and wandered. All nature was saying farewell." (p. 552)

We recognize perennial images:

skirling wind;
cloud shadows;
imported Terrestrial trees;
nature reflecting feelings;
the suggestion that trees speak in an unknown language - did this happen once with Manse Everard?

"Winged animals" remind us that we are not on Earth.

Explicit Pathetic Fallacy

I spotted this one before turning in last night.

In Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, a disciplined, armed procession of four hundred ychan fishers marches towards the Dennitzan Parliament where they will respectfully but firmly request that their leaders be invited to address the Lords, the Folk and the Zmayi, who are meeting in a single chamber. The procession conceals the cloaked and hooded Dominic Flandry and Kossara Vymezal.

The ychani and their two human companions might encounter resistance either from the authorities, Dennitzan or Imperial, or from pro-Merseian assassins. In fact, Anderson, through Flandry, has reminded us of Djana's curse: that Flandry will never get the woman that he really wants. He did not get Kathryn McCormac and now is engaged to Kossara who resembles Kathryn. But they were interrupted before having sex, right after Flandry had reminded us of Djana... We have every reason to fear the worst for Kossara.

Nature obliges with a skirling west wind, a pale sky, sweeping cloud shadows, cold, crying winged animals, branches casting about, leaves blown noisily along the pavement and rain puddles. To clinch everything, the paragraph ends:

"All nature was saying farewell."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 552.

Explicit Pathetic Fallacy II

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

I have discussed this paragraph before (see Explicit Pathetic Fallacy) but let's take a closer look at it.

"A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale heaven." (p. 551)

The wind comments, as ever. Sun and sky pale as Flandry, Kossara and Dennitza move further into the danger zone.

"Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white..." (pp. 551-552)

But that is above. Down below:

"...their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on." (p. 552)

The world of men is shadowed and chilled.

"Winged animals wheeled and thinly cried." (ibid.)

Remember, Dennitza has no birds but winged theroids. These are not singing, as they have sometimes done in previous chapters, but crying thinly.

The trees, mostly imported Terran, are described as casting about, creaking and soughing Delphic utterances. Such utterances were at best ambiguous.

The wind rips off leaves, described as fire-tongues, which "...scrittle off over the pavement." (ibid.)

There are wandering rain puddles. In the pathetic fallacy, rain is nature weeping.

Finally:

"All nature was saying farewell." (ibid.)

Indeed.