Nicole J. LeBoeuf (she/her)

"Though the moon had not yet set, the sky in the east was stained with light...."

What is that "though" doing there? These two states are not inherently contradictory! Either the moon is at a phase where it normally sets at or after dawn OR it isn't, and the moon shouldn't be up at first light, and this very mainstream litfic novel is about to turn magic realism on me. And I'm pretty sure THE ESSEX SERPENT isn't about to do that on page 355.

FAIL!

#BadMoon #MoonFail #pedantry #PetPeeve

Mar 14 at 5:40pmWeb
Show threadNicole J. LeBoeuf (she/her)Mar 14
(The best part about leaving the house around dawn is gawking at that gorgeous waning gibbous moon hanging above the Rocky Mountains in the west while the underbellies of little sheepie clouds turn pink with the dawn.)
Show threadNicole J. LeBoeuf (she/her)Mar 14
The hell of it is, THE ESSEX SERPENT is full of profoundly poetic descriptions of that part of the country. In the same paragraph, the barley fields have been "harvested white", a lovely way to describe the way the stubble turns the fields pale. Also, the scene is from the point of view of someone I wouldn't expect to be surprised by the moon being up in the predawn light - and indeed, he's hardly noticing his surroundings, as it turns out. So the whole thing just feels weird to me.