"...Nicholas van Rijn...got himself quartered next to her and she had enough trouble by day fending off his ursine advances..." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, New York, 2010, p. 6)
"One hairy hand stole across the table and closed on Joyce's.
"'Here comes Uulobu,' she exclaimed, pulling free and jumping to her feet." (p. 20)
"He patted her knee...Joyce got up for another cup of coffee and seated herself at a greater distance." (p. 24)
"...he had had a hard life, poor thing. No one had ever really taken him in hand..." (p. 63)
"...after all, he really was a very interesting person..." (p. 76)
We might regard this as humorous or sexist but there is another feature to note. It is all narrated from Joyce's point of view. The flamboyant, larger than life van Rijn exists to be presented to the reader as perceived by others. In fact, is there any passage that is narrated from his point of view?
7 comments:
Hi, Paul!
It always makes me laugh, the line about "...he had had a hard life, poor thing. No one had ever really taken him in hand." It simply boggles my mind, thinking anyone coudld "take in hand" Old Nick! (Smiles)
Never mind van Rijn's loud, ostentatiously self pitying bluster and unabashed amassing of wealth, as Joyce came to realize, Nicholas van Rijn was, at heart, a fundamentally decent man.
No,I don't recall seeing in any of the Technic History stories passages giving us scenes and ideas from his POV. We alsays see Old Nick from how other persons reacted to him, favorably or unfavorably.
Sean
As I thought, we are invited to imagine seeing and hearing him but not being him.
Hi, Paul!
I have wondered if that was a mistake of Anderson, never giving us any of Old Nick's interior thoughts and POV. After all, he was perfectly capable of doing so with other characters, such as Dominic Flandry. Or did it make better artistic sense, to see van Rijn only as others saw him? I'm reminded of how we don't see the inner mind og Manual Argos in "The Star Plunderer," we only see him as the narrator of the story saw him. Again, I can see how that makes artistic sense, we don't NEED to see the interior monologue of every major character. Leave some room for mystery!
Sean
I agree.
I like the idea of ending May with a round number of posts, 80, so I will probably hold back any more till the start of next month but, meanwhile, have added an Anderson-related post, "Superhero Parallels", to Comics Appreciation.
Hi, Paul!
Glad You too thought it made good artistic sense for Anderson never to give us any of Old Nick's interior "stream of consciousness."
Thanks! Altho I find it a bit strange to think of any works by PA beig "translated" to the comics form. Makes me wonder if any of his books were converted into a Japanese style manga. Closest I can think of being the very copious illustrations done for the first edition of A STONE IN HEAVEN.
Sean
Sean,
I have added the post from Comics Appreciation and three others here.
Fair winds forever,
Paul.
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