To continue Patrol mini-bios:
Ralph Corwin, born in 1895, studied American Indians in the 1920s and '30s before joining the Time Patrol.
When Wanda Tamberly meets him:
"She wondered if it was the British accent that put her off." (p. 161)
Thanks, Wanda. But I know what she means. (And some would say the same about an American accent.) Poul Anderson writes Corwin to get on our nerves from the word go.
The Patrol admin base for studying migrations into the Americas is in twentieth-century Berkeley, California. It is a residential building rented and lived in for several years although it lacks a hidden space for time travel arrivals and departures. Because this base is so busy, it is kept separate from regional headquarters in San Francisco where too much coming and going would draw unwelcome attention. Berkeley is perfect for visits by occasional oddities and official surveillance regarding drug abuse will not start until the group has finished its work. The Patrol knows exactly when it is safe to work in, then to vacate, any particular building.
When I commuted once or twice a week to work in Merseyside, I stayed in a single-room bed-sit three or four nights each week but was almost never there at weekends. With a time machine, I could now make use of that otherwise empty room at the weekends. I would not run into my younger self because I didn't.
28 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Sometimes I come across moments like this in literature, where a character is "put off" by a British accent. Frankly, I'm puzzled over why that should be so. Do some think a British "sounds" condescending?
And I still recall how a London shop keeper could not only tell from my accent that I was American, but from the state of Massachusetts. I was surprised and interested, not offended.
As for the last part, you would have to make sure not to leave any signs of your younger self might find of somebody using your former bed-sit during those weekends.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that it is Corwin's whole personality that is putting Wanda off and she is focussing this on his accent.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Probably, because people can rub each other the wrong way from almost the first moment of meeting.
Ad astra! Sean
There are enough variant accents in Britain that when I hear eg: an Australian I am seldom sure it isn't one of the British variants.
I recall hearing that a woman who had grown up in a rural area near Ottawa was visiting London England & was asked "& what part of Ireland are you from?". That part of Canada was settled just after the Irish Potato Famine, thus the confusion.
In the context, the "British accent" (actually Received Standard) Corwin is using is an affectation -- in his birth-period, aspirants to upper-class status in the US often cultivated it, as a sign of social/educational superiority.
On a related note, a rather similar accent was native to East Coast patrician families of long standing, like the Roosevelts, particularly if, eg., they'd been to Groton School and Harvard.
This is a recording of Theodore Roosevelt making a speech. Note that accent.https://www.loc.gov/item/99391599/
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Given my ruined, minimal hearing, such nuances would unfortunately pass me by. Because I have to focus so much on simply UNDERSTANDING what someone is saying to me that I seldom stop to think of such things as how the other person is speaking or saying something.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: because of that accent, Roosevelt had to win a lot of fistfights when he went ranching in the Dakotas -- it sounded insanely sissified and effeminate to the cowboys.
(Who would mostly have spoken Upper Southern dialects.)
At one point, during an early round-up, TR called out: "Hasten forward more swiftly there!" to his ranch-hands, and it became a joke all over the district.
A fairly affectionate one, once he' proven himself as tough as any of them, but it caused initial misunderstandings.
Also, TR didn't swear -- never used scatology or obscenity or blasphemy, even when extremely angry and in all-male company. He could be quite biting, but he did it with cutting observations.
(From SM Stirling.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And it goes both ways! Some of those Groton boys would probably think those cowboys were impossibly rustic and uneducated.
My mother, an old school LADY, hated cussing. So, I learned not to use scatological/obscene language. Aloud, anyhow! I usually just say "Fiddlesticks" when I have a hammer hits thumb moment! (Smiles)
As for blasphemy, NEVER. My view is that of a fellow Catholic, Chaucer, in THE CANTERBURY TALES, who wrote with great anger and feeling against profaning sacred things.
Ad astra! Sean
"Blasphemy" ?
What qualifies is necessarily a parochial judgement.
Expressing any doubt that Mohammed is a true prophet is considered blasphemy by a Muslim.
Kaor, Jim!
That would be true, if I was a Muslim. I am neither a Muslim or believe him to be a prophet.
Ad astra! Sean
and any non-Catholic considers reverence for a cracker or water that has been blessed by a priest to be at best silly.
Jim,
I think Alan Watts said (roughly): "As a pantheist, I already believe that bread and wine are the body of God."
We have to respect other people's beliefs. We should sometimes think, "I can be wrong." I was brought up as a Catholic and told that Anglican orders were invalid so that Anglican communion was not genuine. Now I respect any Christian practice of communion. I know that it would be inappropriate for me to receive communion and also very wrong to prevent, e.g., anyone in hospital or prison from receiving communion as administered by a chaplain of their choice.
Paul.
Kaor, Jim and Paul!
Jim: the Most Holy Eucharist is not a mere "cracker" or bit of wine (not water) merely "blessed" by a priest. In Catholic eyes, any validly ordained priest who consecrates the bread and wine at Mass is used by God as His instrument thru whom that bread and wine becomes the actual body and blood of Christ. Technically, only the "accidents" of that bread and wine remains after being transubstantiated. All this being done in a strictly literal understanding of what Christ did and commanded at the Last Supper. Every valid Mass is a RE-presentation, in an un-bloody manner, of the once and for all sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to the father.
Paul: Many, perhaps most, Protestants take what is often called a Zwinglian view of the Eucharist, that it is merely allegorical or symbolic of what Christ did at the Last Supper. Others, like some high church Lutherans and Anglicans, come close to believing in transubstantiation. Catholics and Orthodox differ from them in believing that what Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, etc., taught about holy orders, the sacraments, and the Eucharist made them no longer have valid priestly orders and Eucharist.
I don't think all ideas are worthy of respect. For example, I do not respect such barbaric things as what the Aztecs believed about the rightness and necessity of mass human sacrifices (including cannibalism) to their gods. I use an extreme example to bring out more clearly my point. I can, and do, respect how some of the worshipers of Amon-Ra in Pharaohnic Egypt had such exalted conceptions of their god that it came close to monotheism.
Ad astra! Seam
"Accidents" is out-dated philosophy. What is a substance apart from the sum total of its properties?
"As a pantheist, I already believe that bread and wine are the body of God."
I find that several steps more sensible than regarding a blessing by a priest as conferring anything better than a blessing by any other human.
I consider the child rape scandals in various churches to be overwhelming evidence against the idea that priesthood in any way makes the priest better.
Sean: actually, High Church Anglicans believe in transubstantiation in about the same way Roman Catholics do; they go rather further than even the most conservative Lutherans.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling! Jim: Let me correct a possible misunderstanding. ORTHODOX Catholics do not believe that ordination to any of the ranks of the priesthood makes a man better, or is a sign that this man will be made better merely because of ordination. A priest or bishop remains prone to all the vices common to all mankind. Mr. Stirling: True, some VERY high church Anglicans do believe in transubstantiation. And I mentioned the Lutherans because I thought some Swedish Lutherans came close to that belief. Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A Catholic philosopher argued that, if God helps Christians and no one else with grace, then statistically Christians should be morally better than everyone else.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with that philosopher. Because it is patently true SOME non-Christians are good people, guided by what light was known to them. All human beings are affected by Original Sin.
That said, the Catholic Church alone, has the largest globally operating charitable and educational system in the world. To say nothing of similar efforts by some of the Protestants. I don't know of any analogous non-Christian organizations, in size and scale.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Your 1st para: grace should make some difference, surely?
2nd para: the church has a lot of schools because it is a big church. Surely there are large non-Christian charities and similar organizations?
Paul.
I must go and meditate for half an hour, then eat, but will probably be back here later this evening.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but unlike what Calvinists say (or used to say) grace is not irresistible or incapable of being lost. That is why Christ instituted the sacrament of confession, empowering the apostles and their successors to forgive sin in His name and thru His power.
Yes, but I also said the Catholic Church also runs many charities: hospitals, clinics, orphanages, homes for the elderly, etc. And takes in many, many non-Christian patients and clients. Done at the command of Christ.
Are there non-Christian charities? Yes, but no other faith, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslim, to name some of the largest, has anything like this on the size and scale of Christian efforts. And that is not meant as a boast, simply a statement of fact.
Anderson himself mentioned one example of that kind of charitable effort: the hospitals run by the Knights Hospitaller in ROGUE SWORD. The Hospitallers began as purely a charitable order before it took on military functions. The Order still exists and continues to carry out such works.
Ad astra! Sean
There's a bit in THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE where a Hindu is passing a hideously crippled beggar, and comments: "Boy, you must have been an absolute -monster- in your previous lives!"
Most strains of Buddhism inherited this "your present life is payback for your previous ones" attitude.
That is one reason why, although I think that Zen meditation is very positive/helpful/enlightening, I do not buy into the rebirth idea.
We are in the fortunate position of having easy access to cheap translations of the texts of every philosophy and religious tradition so we don't have to identify just with any one of them.
The 'just world' delusion prevents a lot of mitigation of misery.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I hope the "instinctive" reaction of any half way decent Christian would be to empty whatever funds he had in his wallet into the begging bowl of such a cripple. And the Sisters of Charity, founded by St. Teresa of Calcutta, makes a special effort to care for the outcasts of Hindu society.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, To All!
In Anderson's story "Kyrie" we see an interesting futuristic bit about the charitable work of the Church, using the example of the convent of St. Martha of Bethany, set in the Carpathian mountains of the Moon: "They minister to the sick, the needy, the crippled, the insane, all whom space has broken and cast back. Luna is full of such, exiles because they can no longer endure Earth's pull or because it is feared they may be incubating a plague from some unknown planet or because men are so busy with their frontiers that they have no time to spare for the failures. The sisters wear space suits as often as habits, are as likely to hold a medikit as a rosary."
I have thought more than once that this story would have been an ideal addtion to Anderson's Technic series. That probably did not happen because of the great difficulty of fitting in the blazing telepathic plasma beings of Epsilon Lyrae into its background. So "Kyrie" remained a non series singleton.
That mention of "frontiers" in the quote above made me think "Kyrie" could have been set in the Polesotechnic era of Technic civilization, if that had been possible. I can easily imagine a pious Catholic like Nicholas van Rijn contributing generously to endowing St. Martha's Convent.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment