Historical Fiction

Quick breakfast post before a day above the Old Pier Bookshop.

Writers of historical fiction must read history. I read of the Roman generals, the Scipios, father and son, in Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est." While "studying"/suffering Latin at school, I found that I was translating a sentence about the younger Scipio saving his father's life at the battle of Ticinus. I reflected that, unknown to the historians, Time Patrolman Manse Everard was nearby at Ticinus.

Neil Gaiman's "August," about the Emperor Augustus, is presented as extracts from the memoirs of the dwarf, Lycius. Gaiman's source was Robert Graves' translation of Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars which confirms the historicity of Lycius as depicted in "August," although we must assume that the dwarf's memoirs relating the real reason for the decline of Rome have not survived...

Authors of fiction write in the cracks of history.

Into The Northern Wilds

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

roads, fields and houses left behind

grisly tales of savage raiders and trolls

cannibal villages

steeper, higher mountains

the Jotun range

cold, dark and ice

northern lights

home of giants

harsh land

glacier-scarred boulders

wind-gnawed crags

long slopes

razorback ridges

narrow, almost lightless, ravines

thinning woods

twisted scrub oaks

sparse, stiff grass

chill by day

cold at night

scudding clouds

pale sun

brilliant stars

torrenting streams

no coffee

little tobacco

This is what the characters travel through in the Eddas but I suspect that Poul Anderson describes it in greater detail. 

Fantasy And SF II

While still rereading Poul Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions, we also remember Anderson's antithetically dissimilar work, the History of Technic Civilization.

Three Hearts... is fundamentally a fantasy despite its half-hearted and superficial rationalizations of lycanthropy etc.

Thesis: fantasy - supernatural events; no explanations needed.

Antithesis: sf - "natural" events only; at least nominal rationales needed.

Synthesis: a fictional multiverse incorporating both natural and supernatural universes.

(In a comic book multiverse, one parallel Earth was inhabited by anthropomorphic animals because everything published by that same company had to be included.)

Three Hearts... is part of a fantasy history in which King Arthur etc had existed. The Technic History is a future history covering many generations, centuries and millennia although only three of the seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga are multi-generational:

Volume I covers:

exploration of the Solar System

the Grand Survey (early interstellar exploration)

the later exploration of Avalon

the Polesotechnic League in the time of van Rijn and Falkayn

Volume III covers:

the beginning of the end of the League

the two-stage colonization of Avalon

the Time of Troubles

the early Terran Empire

the Terran-Ythrian war with its consequences for Avalon

Volume VII covers:

the Terran Empire in the time of Flandry

the post-Imperial Long Night

the Allied Planets

civilizations in several spiral arms

Volume II is the van-Rijn-Falkayn period. 

Volumes IV-VI are the Flandry period.

Fantasy And SF

Poul Anderson," Fantasy in the Age of Science" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, September 1981), pp. 265-286.

Paraphrase: sf makes the scientific assumption that the universe is comprehensible whereas fantasy is free to assume "...the completely supernatural...forever unamenable to the scientific method." (p. 271) It is necessary to explain teleportation or faster-than-light space travel but not the powers of magicians or gods.

However, in quantum mechanics and in possibilities like naked singularities, science approaches the bounds of comprehensibility. Furthermore, fantasy is rooted in prehistoric traditions stemming from ancient times when human beings marveled at nature and stood in awe of the unknown. We cannot return to our earliest state but nevertheless should remember our origins.

Hugi's Mule

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

When the Saracen, Sir Carahue, had joined Holger and his companions, he:

"...added they had better acquire a mule, on which Hugi could ride with ample food supplies." (p. 113)

- and the following chapter confirms that this has been done.

Thus, I am paid back for suggesting here that the attached cover illustration was inaccurate: a price to be paid for posting while reading although I willingly pay it.

However, surely, to be fully accurate, this illustration should show Carahue now travelling alongside Holger, dwarf and swan?

In any case, that is my lot for this evening. I relax by returning to other reading that (usually) does not require me to think about posting.

Tomorrow is another day and all that.

Some Other Titles

My copy of The Great Divorce by CS Lewis, a 1982 Fontana Religious paperback, advertises some interesting other titles in its concluding pages -

Peter Abelard, a novel by Helen Waddell. (For Abelard in a short story by Poul Anderson, see: Open To Everything.)

The Religious Experience of Mankind by Ninian Smart (who was my thesis supervisor).

The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by CG Jung.

The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham (a very different approach).

Audacity To Believe and Prayer for Pilgrims by Sheila Cassidy (who was tortured in Chile; some Catholic Lancaster University students attending a religious house for a retreat found that Sheila Cassidy was staying there and she joined in their retreat).

And there are more.

I was surprised to find the title of a novel about Abelard, then to remember his Anderson connection. None of the others are directly Anderson-related but they are all of interest (I think).

This Sunday

Today, my wife and daughter have embarked on a day-long coach trip to Holy Island. Having meditated, breakfasted and blogged, I will walk by Lancaster Canal to a Hospice cafe for lunch and will then return home, again to meditate, read, blog and eat. Tomorrow evening, Zen group. Tuesday, the monthly visit to (male) Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop.

Reading involves noticing the multiple parallels between Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman. In Three Hearts And Three Lions, Alianora somewhere refers to Queen Mab who appears as a character in both authors' works.

OK. It is time for me to move.

Laterz.

From Anderson To Heinlein And Back

In Wars Of Religion, we began with Poul Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions and wound up unexpectedly with Robert Heinlein's Future History, the link being wars of religion. If we had stayed with that line of thought, then we might have immediately returned to Anderson because:

Anderson modelled his first future history series, the Psychotechnic History, on Heinlein's Future History;

Anderson's major future history series, the History of Technic Civilization, became a larger scale Heinleinian series;

the Psychotechnic History presents a Cosmic religion, about which we are told virtually nothing, whereas the Technic History addresses religious issues in several instalments;

in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VII, Fr Axor seeks the Universal Incarnation and the Gwydiona develop an elaborate symbolical mythology to conceal from themselves their periodic psychosis and violence.

All human life is there.

Wars Of Religion

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The man who is described as "the Saracen" tells the disguised Holger:

"'I am a Christian like yourself. Once, true, I fought for the paynim, but the gentle and chivalrous knight who overcame me also won me to the True Faith. Though even were I still a follower of Mahound, I would not be so discourteous as not to drink your most beautiful lady's health.'" (p. 106)

(Every faith is believed to be "true," of course.)

Incredibly, there is a small minority that wants to make this an issue now. I was amazed to hear men on a demonstration in London shouting, "Christ is king!" The leader of that same small party led a demonstration against a new mosque and Islamic Centre near here. His speech included the remarks that he and his fellow patriots did not want to be informed about Islam because they already have the True Faith. He led prayers and some of his marchers carried crosses. Meanwhile, clergy from several Christian denominations were among the larger crowd which had assembled to welcome the mosque. They were denounced as heretics.

When the Cold War ended, a work colleague told me that people would soon return to fighting about religion! Society can go backwards as well as forwards. See Robert Heinlein's Future History for technological advances and an American theocracy. (And I did not know that that was where this post was going when I started it.)

Fantasy and sf are about the real world.

Knight And Vigilante

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

This is a frivolous comparison between dialogues in two works that I have reread recently.

First, when Holger and his companions ride into the city of Tarnberg, Alianora is recognized and asked questions, including:

"'Hoy, there, swan-may, what brings you hither?'

"'Who's that knight?'" (p. 98)

Secondly, when a woman nicknamed "Fever" rides on the back of the costumed crimefighter, the Vigilante's, motorcycle, her friends respond:

"Wooooo-OO!

"Hey, new boyfriend! Is he G.I.B. Fever?

"Hey! Fever! Hubba hubba!"

- and she replies:

"Yeah, I guess so...

"...if you put a paper bag over his politics..."

-Alan Moore, Vigilante: "Father's Day" IN Moore, Across The Universe (New York, 2003), pp. 73-121 AT p. 92, panels 4-5.

OK. Diametric opposites. A medieval knightly code and late twentieth century street life. That is how much our fictional heroes differ.