Since pure silence is an ideal, we tend to use the term to mean something a bit less exact. Most people aren’t hankering after actual silence – that is, the complete absence of sound – but something a little more complex and subtle. Silence embodies a much richer place in our imagination than simply the absence of sound. Radio silence can suggest that the world as we know it is disintegrating. The Art of Silence by Amber Hatch is published by Piatkus, £9.99.

Source: The Guardian October 08, 2017 04:52 UTC