"He was a rather handsome man, medium-sized, slender, his features regular in a tanned rectangular face, eyes blue-gray, hair and mustache smooth brown with a sprinkling of white. An elastic gait indicated that he used his muscles a good deal... His soft speech held a trace of non-Terrestrial accent, though it was far too eroded by time to be identifiable. An expensive slacksuit in subdued greens fitted him as if grown from his body." (III, p. 66)
The description of Benoni Strang when he is in conversation with Lady Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen in Starfall on Hermes:
"Medium-sized, slim, the rather handsome features of his rectangular face ornamented by a neat mustache and a suntan, his slightly grizzled brown hair sleeked back, he spoke as smoothly as he moved. His clothes were of rich material, soft in hue but cut in the latest Terrestrial mode... Hermetian intonation had worn away." (XIII, p. 191)
We do not realize it when reading, or at least I didn't, but these are descriptions of the same guy. David Falkayn, having travelled from Earth to Hermes, instantly recognizes Strang as Story and understands a conspiracy.
A film adaptation would have to show the clothing styles of the Solar Commonwealth, Hermes etc.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And you suggested any filmed version of MIRKHEIM should show this conversation of Grand Duchess Sandra with Strang with the latter facing away from the camera. I agree with that idea!
Ad astra! Sean
Interstellar travel is FTL but slow enough for cultural separation. I'm not sure it would work that way -- the time involved is about like ocean voyages in the late 19th century, and dress fashions (above the peasant level) were quite uniform in the Western World back then. Middle-class people in Melbourne, Paris, Naples and Moscow (and Vladivostok) and Berlin dressed very much alike.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Even so, I can still see cultural variation evolving, esp. if many colonies were founded by malcontents, religious groups, ethnic groups, etc., anxious to avoid being swallowed up and homogenized by Technic civilization. The Amish, for example!
Ad astra! Sean
SM - Depends how one defines "middle class" - even in the period 1875-1900, formal dress in much of Latin America, Africa, Southwest Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia for the majority of the people who lived there was vastly different than the standard "Western" fashions.
Not in Latin America; by the 1850's it had become largely Europeanized, except in some very backward parts.
I did say -within- Western Civ. Elsewhere, sure, there was variation.
Note that as Japan modernized, Western dress made more and more inroads.
The last holdout was the least visible -- underwear. Japanese kept wearing 'fundoshi' under their Western dress until after 1945-50.
Take a look at what Benito Juarez wore in Mexico in the 1850's, for example. Or what Oom Paul Kruger wore in the 1890's. Or what the British in India insisted on wearing, shudder.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
What the British insisted on wearing even during the hot part of the year in India should give us reason to shudder!
Ad astra! Sean
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