Thorkild Alanna characterizes the colonists on Harbor as "'...a peasantry...'" (p. 268) albeit "'More or less mechanized...'" (ibid.) They are rooted to and close to the soil. They have the strength, solidity and provincial outlook of peasants. Most of them would not return to Earth even if they were able to. However, a city man would be unhappy if put among peasants and the same applies to those who grew up in the Traveler. A mountain range is not an acceptable horizon. They must see what is beyond it and must return to space.
This discussion of peasants reminded me of something that CS Lewis had written about peasants and aristocrats. See here. However, quoting from memory alone, I had slightly misquoted Lewis. Mark Studdock's:
"...education had been neither scientific nor classical - merely 'Modern'."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 9, 2, p. 540.
And:
"...he had neither peasant shrewdness nor aristocratic honour to help him. He was a man of straw..."
-ibid., p. 541.
We find a good word for the peasantry in both Lewis and Anderson.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think it could have been brought out more clearly that not everybody who had lived or been born in the "Traveler" were happy there or wanted to become nomads. They would be the ones who stayed on Harbor.
Ad astra! Sean
Or as Kipling put it:
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man’s soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks—as the steer breaks—from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed—then the food failed—then the last water dried—
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift—on the veldt-side—in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after—follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after—we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after—follow after—for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very nice, and I agree with how Kipling expressed this restlessness, the longing for new things. I also recall you mentioning how the Conquistadors of Cortes were struck by how the Valley of Mexico reminded them of Medieval romances like AMADIS OF GAUL. They were fanboys of works which tapped into their own restlessness.
Ad astra! Sean
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