Generations

Glancing ahead, we learn that, in instalment 8 of New America, "To Promote the General Welfare," Daniel Coffin, is an old man whose eldest granddaughter, Teresa, has married Leo Svoboda and is in her third pregnancy.

Generations:

Joshua

Dan (exogene; adopted)

Teresa's father or mother

Teresa

Teresa's children

Instalment 1, "Robin Hood's Bridge," introduces Commissioner Svoboda and Joshua Coffin among others. We have come a long way since then.

A generation is twenty years. Some say twenty-five. A lifespan is much longer. I remember three of my grandparents who were born in the late nineteenth century and my granddaughter's generation have children who should live into the twenty-second century. My generation can tell younger people what our parents did during World War II. A lot of oral history.

Scene-Setting

Poul Anderson, "A Fair Exchange" IN Anderson, New America (New York, December 1982), pp. 85-115.

I am not about to reread much of this story this late (just back from Zen group where there was a visiting monk) but the opening paragraphs set a scene:

the town of Anchor on the High America plateau now has ten thousand residents, over 50% children;

there are brick and concrete buildings as well as ground cars and trucks;

the oldest colonists who had come from Earth are by now very few - all or most of the pioneers that we read about in earlier instalments must be dead;

Dan Coffin has been settled at Lake Moondance in the lowlands for thirty-five Rustumite years, twenty Terrestrial;

his wife, Eva, has just given birth to their fourth child who will be unable to live with them in the lowlands.

Well, that defines a human problem in an sf setting so it suffices for this evening. What does the title suggest about a solution?

Wind And Dan

"Passing the Love of Women." 

Dan Coffin learns to love the Rustumite lowlands in "My Own, My Native Land" and that he cannot marry Mary Lochaber but must settle for the more compatible Eva Spain in "Passing the Love of Women."

This second realization is accompanied by appropriately dramatic weather:

"...a rising wind roared in treetops..." (p. 83)

There is thunder and lightning.

"Wind skirled, thunder cannonaded." (p. 84)

Rain smites Dan's face but he sees a new beginning in Eva's eyes. Each instalment carries the Rustumite History steadily forward and we are sorry that, after this one, there will be only two more.

Onward, Earthlings.

More On Rustum

 

"Passing the Love of Women."

Reading on, we confirm that Bill Svoboda is of the same generation as Dan Coffin.

We get the impression that the town on Rustum was named "Anker" after the fictional philosopher of that name but that the spelling was later changed to "Anchor" because that seemed to mean something. (See Anchor Or Anker.)

We post about subtle nuances in Poul Anderson's texts because they recur in many of his works. Thus, Eva Spain pauses in mid-sentence and asks:

"'What is it?'" (p. 59)

- because Dan Coffin has stiffened while she was addressing him. 

In the two ensuing sentences, two familiar phenomena occur. First, Dan expresses a sudden realization and, secondly, the wind emphasizes his comment. The two sentences are:

"'That could be the clue we need.' The night wind boomed under his words." (p. 60)

- and those two points exactly cohere with much that we have previously written about Andersonian story-telling techniques.

I certainly did not notice details like these on my earliest readings of Poul Anderson's works but those works bear endless rereading and analysis.

At Least Three Generations

We refer again to the list of Rustum History instalments here. We are rereading instalment 6, "Passing the Love of Women." Meanwhile, we realize that this series has already reached future history status.

Instalment 1, "Robin Hood's Barn," shows us three generations of Svobodas:

Commissioner Svoboda;

Svoboda's son, Jan, and Jan's wife, Judith;

Jan's and Judith's children, Jocelyn and David.

In instalment 2, "The Burning Bridge," old Svoboda has died.

In instalment 4, "The Mills of of the Gods," the Svobodas, now living on Rustum, have had a second son, Anton, and have also adopted an exogene, Gail.

Instalment 6, "Passing the Love of Women" refers to a Bill Svoboda as a young adult. Bill is probably another of Jan's and Judith's but, if not, then he represents a fourth generation.

The main underlying theme here is the perpetuation of humanity into the future and into the universe.

Rustum History, Instalment 6

Poul Anderson, "Passing the Love of Women" IN Anderson, New America (New York, December 1982), pp. 51-84.

In this Rustum History series, the titles of the individual instalments do not seem very relevant to their particular narratives and also are quickly forgotten because we just think of each instalment as the first, second, third or fourth in the first or second volume. These individual titles are:

"Robin Hood's Barn"

"The Burning Bridge"

"And Yet So Far"

"The Mills of the Gods"

"My Own, My Native Land"

"Passing the Love of Women"

"A Fair Exchange"

"To Promote the General Welfare"

Starting to (re)read the sixth instalment, we immediately recognize the viewpoint character who is named in the opening sentence:

"...Dan Coffin awoke..." (p. 53)

Joshua Coffin appeared in instalments 1, 2, 4 and 5 and his son Danny in instalments 4 and 5. Now we know that the son is still alive although not yet whether the father is. The Rustum series grows at a leisurely pace towards the status of a future history, which has to cover more than one future generation.

Two more "ficts," fictional facts, soon become apparent:

Dan and others are in a settlement in the lowlands, with buildings, pastures and grain fields, so the colony is expanding;

Dan is now in a relationship with Mary Lochaber who had stood up for him when he was bullied at school in instalment 4. 

The pace is leisurely but life continues, nevertheless.

"Danny Yelled."

"My Own, My Native Land."

With only Jack O'Malley and Danny Coffin on a salvage job in the lowlands and O'Malley injured, has their expedition failed?

"Danny yelled.

"O'Malley started, opened his eyes, fumbled after his pistol. 'What is it?'" (p. 44)

Danny does not explain, of course. However, he clears a path to the sea - shorter than their previously intended route back to the parked airbus -, then reconfigures a cart into a windjammer which can haul the salvaged equipment across a stretch of coastal water that had been judged too hazardous for either aircar or motorboat. O'Malley, able, despite his broken arm, to fly the airbus, radios directions from above, then settles nearby on pontoons to receive the cargo.

Problem solved. Two problems: Danny no longer dreads the lowlands. That is the first Rustum story in New America. The other three will have to wait.

Multi-Sensory Overload

Poul Anderson, "My Own, My Native Land" IN Anderson, New America (New York, December 1982), pp. 9-50.

An Andersonian technique is to appeal to at least three of the senses in a descriptive passage so how does the following passage, set in the Rustumite lowlands, grab us?

"The air hung windless, hot and heavy. It was full of odors, pungent, sweet, rank, bitter, none recalling home. Sounds came loud - a background of trills, whispers, buzzes, rustles, purling water; footfalls..." (p. 29)

We notice:

windlessness instead of Anderson's usual wind;

heat, odours and sounds - indeed three;

furthermore, an overload especially of the second and third;

"home" is not Earth but the colonized High America plateau above the permanent cloud cover, effectively a different ecology.

We know that all of these sensations will be having a very unpleasant effect on Danny Coffin who has never recovered from a terrifying experience in the lowlands when he was young although we also expect that this story will be a turning point. Something significant usually happens or changes in a short story. In Anderson's "Rescue on Avalon," Jack Birnham overcomes his antipathy to Ythrians. See Reconciliations.

See also The Rustumite Lowlands.

More About Other Reading

I do not think that it is irrelevant to mention other reading now and again. Presumably we all read something other than Poul Anderson - and not just other sf? In fact, no two people will have read exactly the same collection of titles and everything that we read finds its place in the context of everything else that we have read. Thus, anything either historical or scientific can shed light on Andersonian themes and settings.

Having just reread Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion with enjoyment, I might well launch back into Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (my equivalent of The Lord Of The Rings). How good it can be sometimes to get away from aliens and spaceships for a while although always remembering that the stellar universe still surrounds us whether or not contemporary novelists mention it much. When there are permanent Lunar bases, then contemporary novelists will refer to them. In fact, modern knowledge of exo-planets is not science fictional but factual and therefore is also able to provide subject-matter to be mentioned or discussed in contemporary fiction.

My next task blog-wise is to reread more of Anderson's Rustum History but first comes satisfying the inner man, by meditating and eating.

Ayres And Eyre

Lady Varvara, widow of the Imperial resident on Nyanza, is an:

"'...Ayres [scroll down] of Antarctica.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Game of Glory" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 303-339 AT II, p. 310.

Our daughter's partner, Mike, is a Eyre of Birmingham.

Ayres and Eyre sound similar despite their two spelling differences.

The multiracial, multicultural British city, Birmingham, prefigures Poul Anderson's multispecies Terran Empire - although I now suspect that multispecies civilizations are in the realm of fantasy rather than of hard sf.

Merseians and Ythrians are akin to trolls and elves.

Got to finish second coffee and move.