Wolfe And Svobodas

To Promote the General Welfare.

Commissioner of Astronautics Svoboda had arranged for his own son, Jan, and a fleetful of others, including Theron Wolfe, to emigrate to the extra-solar planet, Rustum.

On Rustum, Wolfe becomes the first mayor of Anchor.

Decades later, the Rustumite Constitutional Convention meets in Wolfe Hall in Anchor.

When a second fleet of emigrants/immigrants approaches from Earth, the chief of interstellar communications on Rustum is Theron Svoboda. 

We have lost count of the number of generations of Svobodas.

OK. That was just another slab of future historical continuity before your blogger goes out to an evening meeting in a community centre in Lancaster.

(The attached image is from a different timeline than the one in Poul Anderson's New America.)

Many Earths

Readers of Poul Anderson's works are very aware that, when Daniel Coffin describes Earth as it had been at the beginning of Anderson's Rustum History (see Cultures), that is the Earth of one period in just one of many timelines. Other Earths are as different from ours and from each other as a historically and scientifically informed author is able to imagine. We will cite just two examples.

A Time Patrol instructor confides:

"'Wait till you've been to the decadent stage of the Third Matriarchy! You don't know what fun is.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 2, p. 14.

The rest is left to our imagination.

An Earth that I particularly like comes right at the end of another novel:

"Earth is a quiet world."

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), XVII, p. 120.

However, we are assured that, despite the quieteness, there are sounds. The following is part paraphrase and part quotation:

wind soughs in great forests;

"...birds sing, cataracts brawl, the oceans rush on the moon's trail around the globe." (ibid.);

there is enjoyment in starport towns and galactic youth in educational centres;

there are also living arts, sciences and scholarship;

but nothing new is built and the old is preserved;

robots guard an immortal spaceman's property for centuries;

ivy and lichen grow on the mostly empty Niyork towers;

traffic is minimal - "...an occasional groundcar, a few pedestrians." (pp. 122-123)

I would like it. Many would not.

Cultures

"To Promote the General Welfare."

Daniel Coffin describes the culture on Earth at the time when the Constitutionalist exiles had departed:

"'The culture was turning more and more from science and technology to mysticism and ceremony.'" (p. 138)

The only ambiguous term in Coffin's assessment is "mysticism" which can imply either mystification (bad) or contemplation (good) (in my opinion, of course). A well-rounded culture should value science, technology, contemplation and ceremony. Most people appreciate some kind of ceremony at least at a funeral. However, replacing science and technology with contemplation and ceremony would be disastrous especially in a world that needs to maintain its existing high technological level for sheer survival. We can not only hope for but also move towards a more well-rounded culture in the future. Sf can prepare its readers for the fact that the future will be different without predicting what it will be - except that it will also be different from what anyone has imagined.

Elwood's Continuum

Yes. I checked. See Sequel. Continuum, 1-4, edited by Roger Elwood, was a series of anthologies of new additions to already existing series written by their respective authors. See here. Poul Anderson's four additions to his already existing Rustum History were later collected in New America and the new instalments by the other authors were likewise collected so that the original Continuums have become redundant.

This explains some odd features of the Anderson stories. Written to order, they are uncharacteristically didactic. In these four successive instalments, Danny/Dan/Daniel Coffin systematically ages, solves problems of qualitatively different kinds - technical, scientific, personal, economic and political - and steadily grows in social stature, out of the shadow of his imposing father into the most important single individual in the Rustumite lowlands.

Elwood has been accused of editing mediocre anthologies but we are glad that he facilitated the writing of two excellent short stories that fitted into the chronology of Anderson's Technic History.

Lulling Wind And Graceful Bounds

"To Promote the General Welfare."

When Coffin has lectured Stein:

"Stein rode, sunk in thought. Wind lulled, leaves whispered." (p. 133)

Lulling and whispering help deep thought. Wind underlines conversational silence and by now feels like Poul Anderson's punctuation. There is a second sentence in this short paragraph:

"Two kilometers off, a herd of cerothere left a wood and started across the sward in graceful bounds." (ibid.)

What a contrast between a species that must ponder its collective future and another that need only bound gracefully.

Radio contact has been established with Earth albeit at a distance of twenty light-years. That is another change. 

When in Anchor, Coffin stays with the de Smets who had fostered one of his sons who, however, will be long into adulthood by now.

The series continues to develop even in this, its concluding episode. Next, Anderson will take us to another colonized extra-solar planet centuries later in the same timeline.

The Proletariat

"To Promote the General Welfare."

Daniel Coffin has to tell George Stein what the proletariat is! 

Coffin explains:

"'Not everybody on High America succeeded in becoming an independent farmer, a technical expert, or an entrepreneur. There are also those who, however worthy, have no special talents.'" (p. 131)

Let us pause for a moment. Do "technical experts" include teachers, doctors and nurses? And maybe some others that I cannot think of right now that would also be necessary on Rustum? I am trying to identify those who have "special talents." So who does not? Coffin continues:

"'Laborers, clerks, servants, routine maintenance men, et cetera. Those who have jobs, whatever jobs they happen to get, rather than careers.'" (ibid.)

The unskilled and semiskilled - who are employed by farmers or entrepreneurs. OK, so far.

Coffin continues:

"'Those whose jobs are automated out from under them when employees acquire the means to build machinery - unless they accept low wages and sink to the bottom of the social pyramid.'" (ibid.)

(Should "employees" read "employers"?)

Does Coffin think that, if everyone had "special talents," then everyone would succeed in becoming a farmer, expert or entrepreneur and that no one would become a labourer, clerk, servant or maintenance worker? Surely it is instead the case that only a minority are able to succeed and that they are able to do this only because they are members of a society where it is possible for them to employ others as labourers etc?

Coffin patronizes those labourers etc. First, he says, "...however worthy...," then he goes further:

"'Mind you, I'm not scoffing at the people I'm talking about. Mostly they're perfectly decent, conscientious human beings. They were absolutely vital in the early days.'" (ibid.)

Absolutely vital. Yes, not everyone could have "succeeded" even if everyone had had "special talents." I would have been one of those "human beings," probably seeking employment as a clerk while hoping that social advances would open up possibilities of higher education or at least of public libraries.

Coffin continues:

"'If something isn't done, Rustum will repeat Earth's miserable history..." (p. 132)

We have discussed this before. I quoted Coffin's litany of that miserable history in The Future Of Rustum. He regards the majority of the human race as a problem instead of as a potential future. We can have not only "demagogues" (ibid.) but also new leaders. Why should upheavals "'...only lead to tyranny'"? (ibid.) We are discussing humanity which is ourselves. Can we not trust ourselves to solve the problems that we ourselves have created?

Change On Rustum II

"To Promote the General Welfare."

"[Daniel Coffin's] place had felt too big and hollow, and at the same time too full of ghosts." (p. 119)

However, when his eldest granddaughter and her family have moved in with him:

"Again the house resounded to joyous voices..." (p. 120)

We the readers have not heard that house resound. This must have happened during the period of "A Fair Exchange" and between instalments. Several additional stories could have been inserted into the fictional chronology at that point.

The extent to which Daniel and those other Rustumites who can tolerate a denser atmosphere have civilized and domesticated their part of the lowlands, which still have a frontier, is shown by the contents of his private room:

"...big desk, big leather armchair, walls lined with books..." (p. 121)

That book publishing has become an early luxury industry is an achievement for this isolated colony. 

The hostile lowland elements can be kept out of doors:

"The panes were full of rain, wind hooted, lightning flared, thunder made drumfire which shuddered in the walls." (ibid.)

And they still punctuate conversation. When Daniel stands motionless after receiving an urgent phone call:

"Lightning glared, thunder exploded, rain dashed against the glass." (p. 125)

Finally for now, time can still be compared to the wind when reflecting on age:

"...these days time went like the wind..." (p. 123)

Reincarnation?

Some blog posts come from strange places and veer away in odd directions. Please bear with us on this one.

Poul Anderson's works are very comprehensive. His fantasies incorporate gods and many other supernatural beings. Do they also touch on the concept of reincarnation as ERB does in his Moon Trilogy? We might think not. However, in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, Queen Dahilis of Ys becomes a seal. This is so understated that a reader might miss it. We do not read Dahilis' point of view as a seal. Nor are we told the postmortem destinations of any other characters although there is a summary of the Mithraist belief: a Dantean ascent through the Solar System. See Literary Wealth. (Read to the end.)

Many people now believe in reincarnation of souls or in rebirth of karmic consequences which is the Buddhist refinement of reincarnation. Arthur C. Clarke once argued against reincarnation on the ground that an animal brain is not complex enough to bear a human personality but he misunderstood reincarnation. A soul passing from a man to a dog is not supposed to carry the man's memories etc with it! But I argue against rebirth for another reason. Scientists can account for every gene, atom, molecule, cell, nerve and neuron in a growing fetus. Genes and environment explain personality. There is no moment during pregnancy when there is an extra input from inherited karma. Our visiting monk identified the "quickening" as such a moment. My synthesis is to learn meditation practice from monks but child development from modern biology and psychology.

OK. We will return to Anderson's Rustum History shortly.

Changes On Rustum

Poul Anderson, "To Promote the General Welfare" IN Anderson, New America (New York, December 1982), pp. 117-157.

Changes on Rustum:

a Constitutional Convention has been in session although now recessed for the midwinter holiday which still involves trimming a tree;

Eva Coffin has died and Daniel, as he is known at the Convention, is white-haired;

his big house at Lake Moondance had been empty until his eldest granddaughter, her husband and their children moved in;

improved transportation in the lowlands has made it possible to centralize control over vast family holdings so that a unified household with domestic staff makes sense. 

We have come a long way with the Rustumites but we in this Lancastrian household will go no further with them this evening. Instead, for me: our daughter's homemade soup and Stieg Larsson.

Ad astra.

A Fair Exchange? II

"A Fair Exchange."

Most of this story consists of complicated economic arguments segueing into some subtle manipulation of de Smet by Coffin which I will not attempt to summarize here. After all, the main theme of this blog is: read or reread Poul Anderson; not: read my summaries of Poul Anderson's narratives.

However, the conclusion is classic Anderson which has to be quoted here. Dan Coffin has just pulled off a long term deal for the development of his beloved lowlands so, of course, nature rejoices with him. First, we are told how he feels:

"...he walked again like a young buccaneer." (p. 115)

The text could have ended there on a purely people note. However, there is one final sentence:

"The wind outside had strengthened, a trumpet voice beneath heaven, and every autumn leaf was a banner flying in challenge." (ibid.)

Wind and banners...