Prelude in Blue : An Excerpt from the novel ‘Sacre Bleu’ by Christopher Moore

This is a story about the colour blue. It may dodge and weave, hide and deceive, take you down paths of love and history and inspiration, but its always about blue!

 How do you know, when you think blue—when you say blue—that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?

You cannot get a grip on blue

Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak. a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly,a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.

Blue is sly, slick, it slides into a room sideways, a slippery trickster.

This is a story about the colour blue, and like blue, there is nothing true about it! Blue is beauty, not truth, ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not! Blue is a deeply sneaky colour!

  Even deep blue is shallow

Blue is glory and power, a wave, a particle, a vibration, a resonance, a spirit, a passion, a memory, a vanity, a metaphor, a dream.

Blue is a simile.

Blue, she is like a woman!

[And in case you hadn’t noticed, blue, she is my favourite colour in the garden! So now, just what does this say about me as a gardener?]