a novel from Francis Spufford

[Jochen Stremmel]

The brig *Henrietta * having made Sandy Hook a little before the dinner
hour—and having passed the Narrows about three o’clock—and then crawling to
and fro, in a series of tacks infinitesimal enough to rival the calculus,
across the grey sheet of the harbour of New-York—until it seemed to Mr.
Smith, dancing from foot to foot upon deck, that the small mound of the
city waiting there would hover ahead in the November gloom in perpetuity,
never growing closer, to the smirk of Greek Zeno—and the day being advanced
to dusk by the time *Henrietta* at last lay anchored off Tietjes Slip, with
the veritable gables of the city’s veritable houses divided from him only
by one hundred foot of water—and the dusk moreover being as cold and damp
and dim as November can afford, as if all the world were a quarto of grey
paper dampened by drizzle until in danger of crumbling imminently to
pap:—all this being true, the master of the brig pressed upon him the
virtue of sleeping this one further night aboard, and pursuing his shore
business in the morning. (He meaning by the offer to signal his esteem,
having found Mr. Smith a pleasant companion during the slow weeks of the
crossing.) But Smith would not have it. Smith, bowing and smiling, desired
nothing but to be rowed to the dock. Smith, indeed, when once he had his
shoes flat on the cobbles, took off at such speed despite the gambolling of
his land-legs that he far outpaced the sailor dispatched to carry his
trunk—and must double back for it, and seizing it hoist it instanter on his
own shoulder—and gallop on, skidding over fish-guts and turnip leaves and
cats’ entrails, and the other effluvium of the port—asking for direction
here, asking again there—so that he appeared most nearly as a type of
smiling whirlwind when he shouldered open the door—just as it was about to
be bolted for the evening—of the counting-house of the firm of Lovell &
Company, on Golden Hill Street, and laid down his burden while the
prentices were lighting the lamps, and the clock on the wall showed one
minute to five, and demanded, very civilly, speech that moment with Mr.
Lovell himself.

2018-02-11 8:08 GMT+01:00 Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com>:

> Has anyone else read this? I just started it yesterday and I haven't made
> it very far, but so far I really like it. Style evocative of M&D, if
> somewhat less so. I really, really liked the opening sentence, which is too
> long for me to quote here.
>
> On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Us fans of Mason & Dixon might like the new novel from Francis Spufford,
>> Golden Hill.  New in the US, that is -- I think maybe a UK lister posted a
>> review a while ago? (I haven't read it yet.) More here:
>>
>> http://crookedtimber.org/2017/06/01/golden-hill/
>>
>
>
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