2021/033: Light Perpetual -- Francis Spufford

2021/033: Light Perpetual -- Francis Spufford

Something is moving visibly, though, even with time at this magnification. Over beyond the table, by the rack of yellowed knitting patterns, something long and sleek and sharp is coming through the ceiling, preceded by a slow-tumbling cloud of plaster and bricks and fragmented roof tiles. Amid the twinkling debris the tapering cone of the warhead has a geometric dignity as it slides floorward, the dull green bulk of the rocket pushing into sight behind, inch by inch.... they can’t see it. Nobody can. The image of the V-2 is on their retinas, but it takes far longer than a ten-thousandth of a second for a human eye to process an image and send it to a brain. Much sooner than that, the children won’t have eyes any more. [loc. 61]

I very much enjoyed Spufford's first novel, Golden Hill, set in 18th-century New York: this one was less engaging for me, perhaps because the period it spans -- 1944 to 2009 -- encompasses much of my own lifetime, though not necessarily my own experience. That said, Spufford's prose is often intoxicating, and he has a knack for showing us the littleness of human lives against the history of the great city of London.

( no spoilers )