Seattle Was Built Out On Pilings Over

Life, As The Most Ancient Of All Metaphors Insists, Is A Journey; And The Travel Book, In Its Deceptive Simulation Of The Journey's Fits And Starts, Rehearses Life's Own Fragmentation. More Even Than The Novel, It Embraces The Contingency Of Things.

My New City [seattle] And Its Hinterland Felt Deceptively Homely. Their Similar Latitude Gave Them The Angular Light And Lingering Evenings I Was Used To. Their Damp Marine Weather, Blowing In From The Southwest, Came In The Right Direction. When The Mountains Are Hidden Under A Low Sky, One Might Almost Imagine Oneself To Be In Britain.

Seattle Was Built Out On Pilings Over The Sea, And At High Tide The Whole City Seemed To Come Afloat Like A Ship Lifting Free From A Mud Berth And Swaying In Its Chains.

At Night, What You See Is A City, Because All You See Is Lights. By Day, It Doesn't Look Like A City At All. The Trees Out-number The Houses. And That's Completely Typical Of Seattle. You Can't Quite Tell: Is It A City, Is It A Suburb, Is The Forest Growing Back?

In Novels And Autobiographies, The First Positive Move That The Immigrant Makes Towards Assimilation Is To Buy Himself A Suit Of City Clothes.