Wednesday 18 July 2018

Tree

Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds, A Stone In Heaven and World Without Stars begin with alien povs (points of view). His The Avatar, I, p. 1, is narrated by a birch tree which acknowledges that it was not conscious during the period described. It was white and slender in a meadow. Its leaves drank sunlight, danced in the wind and changed to gold.

Contradictorily, the tree claims not to have seen, heard, sensed, been aware or understood yet at the same time to have felt and known. This is because its organism will be subsumed into a greater consciousness as we will learn.
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1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I remember those parts of THE AVATAR showing us, implausibly, things like trees and insects being self aware, conscious, reflecting, remembering, etc. Poul Anderson's excellence as a writer managed to get me to appreciate those texts for their beauty and artistry, and NOT to get bogged down on the UNLIKELINESS of it all. A lesser writer could not have brought it off, to persuade us to suspend our disbelief.

Sean

18 July 2018 at 14:34

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