"'My croft...'"
-Book Six, Chapter II, p. 475.
This might just possibly have been a verbal coincidence. However, the Sherlockian connotation is confirmed when we read the rest of the paragraph:
"'My croft,' she sometimes named it to herself, wryly when she thought how in it or in the one at Byfjord she sowed what seed she could and how often she was the Norse kingship." (ibid.)
"Croft" is relevant to sowing seed. "My croft..." is relevant to being the government, as Sherlockians will recognize. See also here.
Meanwhile, Gunnhild does not set out to kill a newly born boy, just to force the boy's mother to accept that he will be fostered by an appointee of her husband's murderers! The mother refuses and it is to be hoped that she remains successful in her defiance of the Eirikssons.
The following passage is noteworthy for two reasons:
"It was a day of blue sky and white clouds. Waves danced, glittered, chuckled. The bright-striped sail drew taut, the masthead pennon fluttered like a wing, and the ship stood out to sea, bearing away Gunnhild's last breath of youth."
-Book Five, Chapter XV, p. 463.
Of course there is some beautiful natural description of the sort that, in Anderson's prose, is as frequent as punctuation. But there is also a theme of the novel - and of any biographical novel. Gunnhild, who was a girl in Book One, Chapter I, is growing old.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I like how you keep finding allusions and "homages" to other authors in the works of Poul Anderson, allusions I too often missed! "My croft," Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes brother! I never thought of that the first time I read MOTHER OF KINGS.
And, yes, I looked up the link to Mycroft Holmes explaining how, in certain ways, he WAS the British gov't. I can see how it applies to Queen Gunnhild. But I can only regret how AMORAL she was in using her power and influence. A ruthlessness which in the end failed her.
Sean
Post a Comment