However, earlier in the narrative, although later in history, Anderson presents a peaceful scene that exemplifies the metaphorical phrase, "the quiet before the storm."
"...a stroll along Unter den Linden. We came back to his house through a summer twilight. Trees breathed fragrance, horse-drawn vehicles clop-clopped past, gentlemen raised their tall hats to ladies of their acquaintance whom they met, a nightingale sang in a rose garden." (Time Patrol, p. 400)
Anderson piles it on here: summer twilight, fragrance, ladies and courteous gentlemen, a nightingale, roses, a garden. There is the quiet but where is the storm? Well, the very next sentence reads:
"Occasionally a uniformed Prussian officer strode by, but his shoulders did not obviously carry the future." (ibid.)
Should they have? Yes, this is 1858. Ganz, the owner of the twilit house says:
"'Let me enjoy my life in these decades that suit me. Too soon will they end...before Western civilization begins self-destruction in earnest...'" (ibid.)
We still live in Western civilization (I think) but did its long term death throes begin in 1914 or earlier? What does the Patrol know that we don't? One of the few good points in a later time travel novel by Robert Heinlein was the insight that historical perspectives change with time. The 1914-'18 conflict is successively called the War, the Great War, World War I, Terran Planetary War Phase One...
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Part of me bleakly and pessimistically suspects Western Civilization began entering its death throes with the assassination at Sarajevo in 1914. At any rate I see no foreseeable end to our Time of Troubles.
Sean
I would see the period post 1945 as at the very least one of the respites from decline that Toynbee saw in his pattern of history, perhaps even a successful repair of the problems that lead to the time of troubles. The voluntary joining of countries into NATO seems a hopeful sign. Though the fact that Trump could get elected in the US is a reason for pessimism.
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