Wednesday 6 June 2018

Man's Last Innocence

The Time Patrol ensures the existence of the Danellians. Jack Havig's group ensures the existence of the Star Masters. However, the Patrol must ensure that Hiroshima happens on schedule whereas Havig's group knows that such events cannot be prevented. Thus, their job is easier than the Patrol's.

Havig:

"...was twelve when the nuclear thunderbolts slew two cities and man's last innocence."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), II, p. 20.

Such a passage in this novel is striking because innocence lost is the overarching theme of the Time Patrol series. See here.

I will probably quote another, longer passage tomorrow but meanwhile I urge anyone who has a copy to read or reread the description of a canoeing and camping holiday in Chapter II, pp. 18-19.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I believe man's innocence was lost when the first man fell. So I can't really accept Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being when innocence was lost. After all, other cities had been destroyed. It was the Japanese who perpetrated the Sack of Nanking only a few years before.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
I had misquoted but have corrected it. Anderson wrote "...man's last innocence." Not "lost."
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That does change the meaning into something I can agree with. Been thinking I should reread THERE WILL BE TIME.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
The blog is working when it makes you think you should reread something.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree! (Smiles)

Sean