The Pathetic Fallacy – or you, me and the weather – Elizabeth Kay
I always had trouble with the phrase pathetic fallacy . It seemed like an extremely harsh condemnation of the British obsession with The Weather, and a wagging finger at attributing any sort of malevolence to it. We Brits all know The Weather has a particular delight in ruining Wimbledon fortnight, bank holidays and test matches. So it was with some surprise that I discovered the words have changed their meaning, and when Ruskin first coined the phrase it didn’t mean stupid misconception but simply emotional falseness. What’s wrong with the occasional foray into personification, if it’s deliberate? When I’m writing a fantasy involving a desert it’s quite nice to have a callous sun with a definite mind of its own. Writing has fashions, and the fact that a Greek chorus is as yesterday as a codpiece shouldn’t stop you using one if you feel that’s exactly what your story needs. All that was just a way of getting me in...