Tags
Bleak House, death, Dickens, eyes, furniture, literature. art, photography, realism
I always thought that Dickens was guilty of extreme exaggeration when in one of his great novels he describes how the wooden shutters of a dingy bedroom seemed to stare down with gaunt eyes upon the dead body on the bed. How ridiculous, I thought. How can furniture or fixtures be described as having eyes!
However, yesterday while visiting a friend I happened to glance down and with a shock saw this amazing and almost living eye staring up at me from the beautifully polished wooden floor. Its steady, unblinking gaze was highly unpleasant and somewhat unsettling. When I took a photograph of it I almost felt that I should ask it for its permission!
I will certainly never accuse Dickens of hyperbole again!