Given its title, should Boat have included an ancient Egyptian immortal?
Each of the Survivors is dissatisfied. Why not just some? What are their problems?
1. Hanno prepares to leave the Solar System. Why?
2. Tu Shan finds that his practical skills are no longer needed.
3. Aliyat tires of fleeting relationships.
4. Wanderer cannot find a genuine wilderness anywhere on Earth.
5. Yukiko hopes that extrasolar intelligences are enlightened but cannot wait for millennia to hear from them.
6. Svoboda wants adventure.
7. After untold millennia, Patulcius wants continued employment with an unchanged job description!
8. Flora wants to remain her organic, historical self.
With which of them do I have the least sympathy?
To Yukiko: Enlightenment is always to be realized here and now. Surely there are less obstacles to it in a world without war or want? It sounds like the Buddha's Western Paradise where conditions are the most favorable for realization.
To Patulcius: For heaven's sake, consider changing, man!
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We sort of, kind of, if indirectly, do get an Egyptian "character" in THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS. In the Richelleu chapter Hanno told the great Cardinal that he had once earlier served and then admitted his deathlessness to another leader, Psammetk I, first and greatest king of the XXVI Dynasty of Egypt. This Pharaoh too lived a very long life and discovered Hanno's secret. The king even made efforts to find other immortals (altho none, except Nornagest, may have been alive at the time).
I think you have the most sympathy for Hanno and Svoboda, of the eight Survivors reasons for feeling unhappy. These two wanted to continue learning and discovering, to DO things that matters. And for that desire to be effective, it meant leaving Earth and the Solar System.
Sean
Sean,
I hadn't thought about that, which I sympathized with most. But yes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I thought so! And what did you think of my comments about Psamtik I?
Sean
Sean,
Psamtik I: yes, it does give us an Egyptian connection in Anderson's understated style instead of the kind of up front in your face connection that some other writers would have given us.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks, I agree, Psamtik I does gives THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS an Egyptian connection in addition to the quote from the BOOK OF THE DEAD we see at the very beginning. Yes, the understated means Anderson chose to bring across this Egyptian tie is preferable to the crudely in your connections other writers might have used.
To say nothing, of course, of how the very title of BOAT came from the BOOK OF THE DEAD.
Sean
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