Flandry reads Genji Monogatari. For Genji earlier on the blog, see here. (Scroll down.)
He plays Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for Kathryn McCormac (and hear here):
"'That's beautiful,' she said when she had finished eating. 'Terran?'
"'Pre-spaceflight. There's a deal of antiquarianism in the inner Empire these days, revival of everything from fencing to allemandes - uh, sport with swords and a class of dances. Wistfulness about eras more picturesque...'" (p. 414)
More picturesque? That's us. This dialogue establishes a future historical perspective by:
describing Mozart as "pre-spaceflight";
describing practices familiar to us as antique;
explaining "fencing" and "allemandes."
The passages also prepares the way for the first two Captain Flandry short stories where Imperial decadence means not that Flandry is defenseless in a sword fight but precisely the opposite: he is proficient in scientific fencing.
7 comments:
The Tale of Genji is incidentally one of the world's first true novels in our sense.
It's also why for a long time fiction writing in Japanese was considered a female pursuit -- to the extent that that for a long while Japanese male authors used female pen-names.
In that period, Japanese men learned Chinese script, using it to express Japanese words -- an incredibly cumbersome system. Women learned the script designed for Japanese, a "lesser" accomplishment. But one you could actually write prose in.
I realized GENJI's importance when I googled it.
Paul:
Not entirely on topic, but your reaction to Flandry calling our era "picturesque" reminded me of a line in one of Richard Armour's humorous history books, It All Started with Stones and Clubs, when he remarked that "Shortly before the start of the Thirty Years' War there were several colorful battles...." A footnote points out that "The prevalent color was a warm shade of red."
I thought of some of the ugly pictures of our "picturesque" time. General Patton, not renowned for his sympathetic nature and tender sensibilities, begged Eisenhower not to make him enter a room where the corpses of death-camp victims were stacked. Now we're keeping small children in cages. Picturesque as all Gehenna. Yeah, that's us.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Somewhere among my books I too have a translated copy of part of Lady Muatori's GENJI. Yet another of the many books I should reread.
So male writers in Japan used to use FEMALE pseudonyms for writing fictional works? Some Western women writers took MASCULINE names for their works.
I understand what Flandry meant by "antiquarianism." But how can we define "decadence"? Biased and one sided tho it was, Prince Cerdic's comments in "Tiger By The Tail" seems apt: "I KNOW the Empire--its self-seeking politicians and self indulgent masses, corruption, intrigue, morality and sense of duty rotten to the heart, decline of art into craft and science into dogma, strength sapped by a despair too pervasive for you to realize what it is--aye, aye. You were a great race once, you humans; you were among the first who aspired to the stars. But that was long ago." And of course this story ends with Flandry sardonically telling Cerdic that he had not studied Terran decadence deeply enough, archaicism accompanied it, including the study of SCIENTIFIC fencing.
Years later, we get Flandry's own view of what this "decadence" was, in Chapter VIII of WE CLAIM THESE STARS, speaking to Kit Kitridge: "I know my class from the inside out, because it is my class and I probably wouldn't choose another even if some miracle made me able to. But we're hollow, and corrupt, and death has marked us for its own. In the last analysis, however we disguise it, however strenuous and hazardous and even lofty our amusements are, the only reason we can find for living is to have fun. And I'm afraid that isn't reason enough." And after Kit protested THAT was reason enough, Flandry replied: "You think so," he said, "Because you're lucky enough to belong to a society which still has important jobs uncompleted. But we aristocrats of Terra, we enjoy life instead of enjoying what we're doing...and there's a cosmos of difference."
Lastly: "The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with any intelligence--and there are some--every one sees the Long Night coming. We've grown too wise; we've studied a little psycho-dynamics, or perhaps only read a lot of history and we can see that Manuel's Empire was not a glorious resurgence. It was the Indian summer of Terran civilization...Now even that short season is past. Autumn is far along; the nights are cold and the leaves are fallen and the last escaping birds call through a sky which has lost all color. And yet, we who see winter coming can also see it won't be here till after our lifetimes...so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves."
And in Chapter I of A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, Flandry's son Dominic Hazeltine said that if he had given any thought to Terran ideas of "fun," he had self-righteously labeled it "vice." Flandry replied: "Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realize is that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eating drugged custard. How dismal! I Would rather be virtuous. Decadence requires application."
Ad astra! Sean
Correction, I got the name of the author of the GENJI wrong. it was Lady MURASAKI, not Muratori. Dang!
Sean
Birr: Godwin's Law.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I looked up "Godwin's Law," and I can see what you meant. Also, one thing I noted with interest was a new Latin neologism: "reductio ad Hitlerum." Rather than the more familiar "reductio ad absurdum."
Btw, the family name of the Wang Dynasy Emperors of Terra was "Murasaki," as in Georgios Manuel Krishna Murasaki. It makes me wonder if Anderson deliberately took Lady Murasaki's name and reused in ENSIGN FLANDRY.
Ad astra! Sean
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