"It is futile to travel to other dusty countries, thus forsaking your own seat."
-Dogen, "Rules for Meditation," recited in Serene Reflection Meditation groups.
Adzel traveled because of his work as a planetologist but then retired to a monastery whereas the lama walks the length and breadth of Hind, supported by a mendicant-respecting culture.
More generally, society moves though it does not know where to:
"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 556.
I do not know what will happen next with the blog - Anderson's Genesis, Kipling's Kim, Anderson's The Game Of Empire, then what?
See also here.
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
As to "where" to go, my view is similar to yours, there remains much, very much to contemplate and comment on in the works of Poul Anderson. Esp. stories and novels not discussed as intensively as you have done the Time Patrol and Technic History series. And other authors and works, such as Rudyard Kipling's KIM, has inspired in you further reflections about Anderson.
I suggest as well that S.M. Stirling could well do the same because Poul Anderson was one of his inspirations. In fact, one of Stirling's stand alone books, THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, is set in an India very much like the India Kipling had known. The premise is based on Stirling's speculations about what might have happened after a series of large comets struck the Earth with devastating results in the mid 1870s.
Sean
Sean,
The message is getting through. I can feel an SM Stirling reading and comparison coming on. At least I can see it on a clear day. Never let it be said that inputs are not actioned.
My present agenda is: read the last 2 chapters of KIM; maybe reread more of THE GAME OF EMPIRE; notionally, receive NESFA Vol 2 from US.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Good! I'm glad! I will be very interested in what you say about S.M. Stirling and how his woks and ideas compares with those of Poul Anderson. I suggest trying one of his stand alone books first. I've been a fan of Stirling since 1988.
I admire the zeal with which you read and reread the works of Poul Anderson! And I certainly agree with why you do that, because there is so MUCH to be found in them. I've reached Chapter 4 of Part I of GENESIS.
Then I think I'll reread KIM after GENESIS.
Sean
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