Hair Raising

I opened the book at random and read in a description “a shock of white hair”. I took it to be a translation and therefore possibly a forgivable cliché but from an American, native born it’s just lazy writing that should be excised on a second pass. As an image it appears to have been generated via the sheaves of corn set upright and leaning against each other to dry. The Scots and Irish varient ‘stook’ refers to the same practice. ‘Samuel Beckett had a stook of white hair’has a freshness for those who know what a stook was. Did that author who wrote ‘shock’ have a clue where the image came from? Probably not.

How would one retain the surprise of a grand head of white hair.

His white hair seemed too abundant for the size of his head. Over the pulpit of his serene pale brow it stood alert bristling with counsel. ‘The O’Haras always kept their hair’ he would say as if that were an opt in favour to the clan.

His white hair stood up like the pelt of a white cat menaced by a terrier.

He was vain of it. Like a patch of scutch grass it stood thick, white, ineradicable rejecting macassar oil, brylcreem, gel, and that concoction known as brinjal (eggplant) oil from India which he gave up after too many ‘I’d love a curry’ remarks.

I blame the editor really, you know.