There has been a bit of a dearth of books around here lately, and that's because I seem to be having a much-needed, though unintended, reading pause. I suppose it's rather like having eaten a lot of rich food, you have to give your system a rest and feed it something small and plain and palate-cleansing. So as there's a lull on the book front, let's look at the word 'lull' which I think is a good one, soft of sound and cadence, largely pleasant of meaning.
I say largely pleasant because a lull is a whaling term, being a tube to convey blubber into the hold of the ship (not a lot of people know that - and nor did I until I looked it up just now!), but we know it rather as a verb meaning "to soothe with sounds or caresses; to induce to sleep or to pleasing quiescence" (I'm drifting off even as I type...).
There's a lull in a storm, of course, which perhaps lulls those caught up in it into a false sense of security; Matthew Arnold talks of "a lull in the hot race" in the last stanza of his soulful poem The Buried Life, and Paul Robeson famously sings "lulla lulla lulla lulla bye bye" in this old song!
