OROSZLANSZIV And Reading

Apparently "Oroszlansziv" means "Lionheart" which makes it an inaccurate translation of "Three Hearts and Three Lions." (I think.) But it is an interesting alternative cover.

I am drafting a slightly longer post on the experience of reading in general and on how this relates to Poul Anderson in particular. However, having returned home from the gym, I must now go out to a meeting so that post will probably be deferred until tomorrow.

There is no end in sight. 

I also must catch up with recent novels by SM Stirling whom this blog recognizes as a worthy successor of Poul Anderson as well as a writer in his own right. But that is one of a number of other stories.

Good evening or good night.

Trois Coeurs, Trois Lions; Trzy serca i tryz lwy; Tre cuori e tre leoni; Tres Corazones Y Tres Leones; Tri srdce, tri lvi

It is late here so let's just appreciate some translated titles and their covers.

How Much Rationalization?

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWELVE.

(An inaccurate cover illustration, unless the dwarf gets a donkey later in the novel. (I post as I reread and can't remember everything.))

A giant cannot just be a very big man with normal human bodily proportions:

"...the creature was humanoid, though grotesquely squat and short-legged in proportion to height. Well, [Holger's] thought flashed, even if the law of proportion doesn't work quite the same here as at home, he needs enough cross section to bear his weight." (pp. 73-74)

More scientific rationalization. 

See:

Rules, Riddles And Radioactivity

If all the fantasy ideas are scientifically rationalized, then the narrative becomes sf. But there are some genuinely supernatural agencies in the Carolingian. Holger thinks so. He converts to Catholicism. Does the force that unites the multiverse have a personal aspect in some universes but an impersonal one in others? 

Sunlight

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWELVE.

If I post about some obvious point in a text by Poul Anderson, then there is a good chance that I have posted about it before. However, there remain many unobvious points. Some legendary supernatural beings are vulnerable to sunlight so what would it feel like for them to be caught in it?

"As the first beams touched him, Balamorg screamed. Holger had never heard such agony before... He writhed and changed, gruesomely." (p. 79)

CS Lewis dreams:

"'The morning! The morning!' I cried, 'I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost.' But it was too late. The light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head."

-CS Lewis, The Great Divorce (London, 1982), pp. 117-118.

Then he woke up.

(Those were imaginative accounts of the fates of a giant and a ghost.)

Coventry

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Alianora:

"'As evil waxes, the very man who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o' fighting, and therefore give evil a free beachhead.'

"Holger thought of his own world, where Coventry had been avenged upon Cologne, and nodded." (pp. 71-72)

But people can create symbols for completely contradictory circumstances. St Paul's Cathedral surviving the Blitz boosted morale and symbolized proud resistance whereas Coventry Cathedral destroyed but later rebuilt came to symbolize peace and reconciliation. In Britain, the Dunkirk evacuation symbolizes not defeat and retreat but rescue and survival - waxing evil transfigured.

The Unicorn

Three Hearts And Three Lions.

I am back home from the Gregson. It is getting late. I am not going to research this post, just write from memory. 

Alianora rides a unicorn. Holger does not understand her affinity with it. I think that readers are supposed to understand that virgins have an affinity with unicorns?

In Larry Niven's The Flight Of The Horse, a male character describes a female character who has not come on-stage yet as a "frigid bitch." When this young woman does come on-stage, she is a cheerful and sympathetic character - and has an affinity with a unicorn.

When Holger and Morgan le Fay embrace, Alianora approaches on her unicorn which throws her and bolts, never to return! The two women insult each other like fishwives and Holger must choose between them. He does not side with Chaos.

There. That is a short post before returning to late night other reading. There is always something to write about although it is never predictable what it is going to be.

Valduma

We find that we have compared the legendary Morgan le Fay and the Andersonian villainess, Raor, twice.

See:

Raor And Morgan Le Fay

Morgan Le Fay And Raor

An earlier Andersonian villainess named Valduma is also of their ilk.

See:

Whimpering Wind, Different Species And Primeval Chaos

Wildness And Domesticity

Sargasso: Some Details

Ambiguity

Jansky, Valduma And Morzach

Wildness And Un-Men

Freedom And Chaos

Rereading "Sargasso of Lost Starships" would probably give us some appropriate quotation from Valduma. However, I am on my way out to the Gregson which is why I have resorted to a few blog links. And I am amazed at how much completely forgotten information is to be found in earlier posts.

Morgan Le Fay And Raor

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Queen Morgan le Fay tries to win Holger for Chaos:

"'What is there about dull Law that drives you to defend it?...

"'...the mirth and thunder and blazing stars of Chaos would be yours...

"'You could hurl suns and shape worlds if you chose!'" (p. 68)

She sounds like Raor of the Exaltationists:

"'We would have made [the universe] what we chose, and unmade it and remade it, and stormed the stars as we warred for possession, with an entire reality the funeral pyre of each who fell and entire histories the funeral games, until the last god reigned alone.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, July 1991), PART TWO, 209 B. C., p. 118.

The former reminded me of the latter.

It is time to eat and drink something and to say good night until tomorrow.

Holger Philosophizes

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"The symmetry was suggestive. In Holger's home world, physical forces were strong and well understood, mental-magical forces weak and unmanageable. In this universe the opposite held true. Both worlds were, in some obscure way, one; the endless struggle between Law and Chaos had reached a simultaneous climax in them. As for the force which made them so parallel, the ultimate oneness itself, he supposed he would have to break down and call it God. But he lacked a theological bent of mind. He'd rather stick to what he had directly observed, and to immediate practical problems. Such as his own reason for being here." (pp. 66-67)

No, he does not have to call ultimate oneness "God." 

See:

Words And The Word II

The One

Metaphor And Myth

Two propositions seem intuitively valid: first, that all is one; secondly, that change occurs because opposed forces interact. However, I suggest that energy and inertia are more fundamental than Law and Chaos - and they are definitely preconscious. 

See:

Energy And Inertia

Energy And Inertia

Ultimate Social And Cosmic Developments

Philosophy

Philosophy II

How to deal with a dragon: throw water in its mouth. (CHAPTER TEN.)

Inspired By MAGIC, INC.

(i) In the introduction to his collection, Operation Chaos, Poul Anderson writes that Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc. is set in a world where magic not only works but also is treated matter-of-factly as a set of technologies but that Heinlein did not develop all the possibilities of this idea so Anderson himself developed some further possibilities in his Operation... series.

(ii) Anderson adds that Harry Turtledove has also presented a treatment of the same idea.

(iii) "The double-page spread on pages 12 and 13, by the way, is a direct steal from Robert Heinlein's novel Magic Incorporated."

-Neil Gaiman discussing The Sandman, issue 4, in Hy Bender, The Sandman Companion (London, 2000), 3, p. 35.

That double-page spread depicts a gathering of all the demons in Hell.

We keep finding Anderson-Gaiman parallels: two great imaginative writers in different media: verbal and visual-verbal.