Rereading this passage, we find that Anderson's earliest description of Lorenzo had prepared us for this character's larger than life role:
"...vividness. Even quietly seated, the man somehow blazed. He rose from his bench as a panther might. Expression went across his face like sun-flickers on water where a breeze blew." (The Shield Of Time, pp. 329-330)
Changeable patterns on the surface of the sea had already been used as a metaphor for variable reality:
"For reality is conditional. It is like a wave pattern on a sea. Let the waves - the probability-waves of ultimate underlying quantum chaos - change their rhythm, and abruptly that tracery of ripples and foam-swirls will be gone, transformed into another." (Time Patrol, p. 671)
It is as if even Lorenzo's face expresses his historically pivotal role.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Historically pivotal and TRAGIC. Lorenzo de Conti was by no means a bad man. He was not only a vigorous and active man, but also a very decent and well meaning person.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Congratulations on your Queen now having surpassed in length the reign of her great great grandmother Victoria! Esp. notable since Elizabeth II was older at her accession than Queen Victoria when she succeeded her uncle William IV in 1837.
Sean
Sean,
We suspect that we will have Elizabeth for another couple of decades! How many people have been born and died with a single monarch on the throne? Like Victoria, she symbolizes the unchanging during a period of unprecedented and accelerating social change.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't know if her Majesty still has DECADES of her reign left, but it's reasonably safe to say she still has YEARS left.
And, yes, untold MILLIONS of Britons, thinking of the UK alone, have lived and died during Elizabeth II's reign. And, yes, I can see how many, many regard her as a symbol of stability and continuity in these turbulently troubled times.
Sean
Elizabeth II is only 89; the Queen Mum was 101 when SHE died (I was at the time on a NATO exercise with a colonel who was the working-level commander of a regiment of which the Queen Mum was ceremonial colonel). Good genes there; another decade or even two can't be ruled out, especially with how medicine's improved over their respective lifetimes.
Hi, David!
I have to agree, a combination of good genes and good quality medical care DOES affect how long a man or woman can live. In Anderson's THE HARVEST OF STARS books even genetically unmodified humans could live about 130 years. The Lunarians (genetically adapted to live and reproduce on the Moon) lived for about 140-50 years.
Sean
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