"Slipping out in the dark he would track night-scented flowers in the summer woods" - Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
Thursday, August 6, 2009
"Slipping out in the dark he would track night-scented flowers in the summer woods"
"Slipping out in the dark he would track night-scented flowers in the summer woods" - Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
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10 comments:
Beautiful shot and melding of picture with words.
Your lighting on this one is really nice... angry looking bird
I wouldn't slip out in the dark if there were things like that in the woods.
I just realised this is an Australian novel ... we typically don't use the word 'woods' to describe the forest but then I guess they were early settlers and still British at heart.
Joan Elizabeth, ah, this is something I would never have realized, wood vs. forest.
This is Mr. Frazer, the amateur botanist, recalling his botanical adventures in the English woods.
I would go even further than JE: in this sentence (but not this situation from Malouf's book), Australians would use the word "bush".
I could be wrong but ... I use the word "forest" when referring to something man has created, like a pine forest. The word "bush" has two uses. Firstly, bush is any area that is heavily wooded with tall trees and low scrub. Secondly, bush is anything that is not urban, eg Sydney or the bush.
Here endeth the lesson ...
I totally agree with Julie. We use the word "bush" for native forests. I didn't write it in my original comment because I thought "bush" might confuse you -- after all a "bush" is shrub or small tree in the Queen's English.
The bird has a great expression from this perspective.
Julie, Joan Elizabeth, I wanted to answer with some nice little explanation about the German usage of Wald/Busch/Forst (i.e. woods, bush, forest) and started reading some articles ... and more articles ... about forest (can be unwooded), Busch (in Northern Germany might mean woodland, we here use it mostly for African and Australian woodland) etc. etc. but I gave up - too much info.
Joan Elizabeth, interesting is when Gemmy goes back in the bush (sic!) he is going back in the forest in Malouf's words.
No wonder the novel is titled "Remembering Babylon" ;-)
Love the light in this shot and the mood..
Ah, the perfect quote for this
serious looking fellow.
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