"The priest's mind had been like a well, a deep well under sun-speckled trees, its surface brightened with a few gold-colored autumn leaves... ...happy...serene...with so much strength under the gentleness." (p. 130)
That contrasts with other minds in the story. In fact, imagine the opposite of what I have just quoted and you will get what I mean about emotional unpleasantness.
I am not big on telepathy although James Blish, for many years my favorite sf author, presents perhaps half a dozen rationales for it. Anderson also rationalizes telepathy, for example when writing about the telepathic spy, Aycharaych.
This is an opportunity to make a brief comparison with one other sf author. Although Robert Silverberg is prolific, I have not read many of his works. I am big on time travel (and have a Logic of Time Travel blog) but I think that Silverberg's maybe half dozen novels on this theme either do not contribute anything new or, in the case of Up The Line, get it badly wrong. However, his telepathy novel, Dying Inside, is superb. I heard Mr Silverberg read an extract at a British Con and afterwards read a copy borrowed from a Public Library. If telepathy exists, this is what it is like. And there is one old guy who is like Anderson's priest. The hero reading his mind thinks that it is pure Zen.
Definitely an sf novel to give to people who don't read sf.
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Glad I reminded you of one passage in "Journeys Eng" which you did not find unpleasant. Since I've not read Silverberg's telepathy novel, I'm unable to comment on it.
My view is that Anderson wrote convincingly about telepathy both in "Journeys" and in describing Aycharaych.
I fear the unpleasant parts of "Journeys" is all too plausible. We all have our dirty little shames and secrets. Which is why the priest was such a relief.
Sean
Sean,
In an Aycharaych point of view novel, we would have got what the telepathy felt like to Aych. It is a pity that PA did not write this.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I agree, it would have been very interesting if Anderson had written a novel or story from the POV of Aycharaych. It does make me wonder how Aycharaych handled being "bombarded" by the minds and thoughts of others. Esp. when you recall how many of those minds/thoughts are likely to be unpleasant. Mightn't a race of natural telepaths like the Cherionites have evolved means of "shielding" their minds from the unwanted thoughts of others? And then discovered from non Chereionites that other races did not have those shields?
Sean
Sean,
Also I think that a lot more work is necessary to make the Chereionites' universal telepathy credible in the first place!
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Yes, if something implausible is discovered to exist, scientists will try to fit it into known science. That was why the discovery of Aycharaych's universal telepathy was such a shock to the Terran Empire. It had not been thought possible for such a universal form of telepathy to exist.
Sean
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