Occasional Reading

Occasionally, I mention other books being read at the same time in order to locate Poul Anderson in his wider literary context. We thank the gods for the English language that gives us the works of PG Wodehouse and Poul Anderson, a new Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and English translations of Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano novels.

Wodehouse began writing about English class society shortly after World War I and continued to write about that same social set-up decades after it had gone out of date. It seems that there can be no connection between the universes of Wodehouse and Anderson. However, everything does connect somehow.

Jeeves In The Offing (London, 1960) refers to:

"...those horrors from outer space which are so much with us at the moment on the motion-picture screen." (p. 13)

Thus, Wooster inhabits a world in which people watch sf films and therefore also, although this is not mentioned, read sf novels, including those of Poul Anderson.

Very Good, Jeeves! (London, 1957) contains the germ of a time travel story:

"I was back at the flat so quick that I nearly met myself coming out." (p. 106)

In Anderson's The Corridors Of Time and There Will Be Time, time travelers do return soon enough to notice their younger selves departing.

Anderson also wrote some humorous fiction. This is not what he is well known for but it does put him somewhere close to PG Wodehouse.