Saturday 25 February 2017

3147 miles

Previous outings and holidays within England have generated relevant blog posts, e.g.:

Greystoke Castle and Hadrian's Wall (see here);
York;
Portmeirion, which I compared with Ys;
Caernarfon;
Lichfield;
King's Lynn;
Norwich;
Heysham;
Morecambe.

This week, we visited Land's End which is 3147 miles from New York. That city exists in many works of fiction and drama. For me, it is significant as James Blish's flying city and as the setting both of Manse Everard's apartment and also of the Farness' apartment overlooking Central Park in the 1930s. How is Land's End relevant? It is the westernmost point of England and has a signpost pointing across the Atlantic at New York. We visit Land's End and think of New York - and I wonder what Manse Everard is doing in 2017.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Trying to think of the latest date involving Manse Everard in the Time Patrol stories--the 1990s perhaps? Sometime around 2000 at the latest he would have to fake his death and have Manse Everard, under that name, fade away. He probably had to assume a false name and relocate to a different apartment.

Something analogous to Land's End can be seen in Asimov's FOUNDATION books. Hari Seldon ambiguously said the Second Foundation was located at Stars End. And we see people puzzling over what that meant.

Sean