Saturday, March 11, 2023

All its knowledge of sunlight and depth

Back to my usual form of posting something that I want to save without much/anything in the way of explanation, a sentence from my nice new Persephone Books publication:

The afternoon was grey and dull, a sky hiding under its neutral grey all its knowledge of sunlight and depth of wild scurrying clouds and white clouds that drifted across the blue as peacefully as a dream; a sky content to be a lid across the world.
--from page 64 of There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult

The book is about an eighty-ish-old-woman who has dementia, though her mind seems to be fairly decent, she just doesn't remember anything she is told and behaves a bit childishly much of the time. Her bedclothes and nightgown are something quite shocking, according to her one remaining servant. I like this line about the sky because it seems quite descriptive of the Seattle sky that I've found so oppressive this winter.