"'Things have a way of recurring. People do.
"'Therefore it is wise to study those who have been part of great events. They may again, whether or not our extant records show anything of it.'
"'But I was just borne along,' [Wanda] stammered. 'Manse - Agent Everard, he was the one who counted.'
"'I want to make sure of that,' Guion said."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), Part Three, p. 136.
"...whether or not our extant records show anything of it..." Guion has access to the records of Wanda's life from birth to death. Nevertheless, in a variable timeline, he must prepare for the possibility that she will be involved in great events unmentioned in those records.
(In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Destiny knows what was, is and will be, yet Delirium claims to know things that even he does not know.)
Shortly afterwards, Wanda thinks:
"She wasn't important, she decided. Impossible. This wasn't humility - she expected to do a topflight job in her coming line of work - but common sense." (ibid.)
Wanda is not important but certain events are.
Guion tells Everard:
"'Sometimes, however, individuals have a significance far beyond their ostensible worth. Not that you or I count for nothing in ourselves. But as an illustration of the general principle, take, oh, Alfred Dreyfus. He was a competent and conscientious officer, an asset to France. But it was because of what happened to him that great events came about.'" (Part Five, p. 260)
Elwin Ransom tells CS Lewis:
"'Don't imagine I've been selected to go to Perelandra because I'm anyone in particular. One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any job. And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity. Certainly, it is never for what the man himself would have regarded as his chief qualifications. I rather fancy I am being sent because those two blackguards who kidnapped me and took me to Malacandra did something which they never intended; namely, gave a human being a chance to learn that language.'"
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT Chapter 2, pp. 163-164.
So I bow to the combined wisdom of Poul Anderson, Neil Gaiman and CS Lewis, also of Guion, Delerium and Ransom.
There are two issues here but they interconnect:
Are events more important than persons?
Is there something other than known events?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You ended this blog piece with two questions. To the first I would say that events are not always more important than persons. I argue that individuals can also cause events. Because, for example, Keith Denison was the kind of man he was, extremely able, strong willed, AND a decent person, he BECAME in a real way Cyrus the Great in "Brave To Be A King." He became a cause and creator of great events whose consequences resounded down thru the ages.
As for your second question, yes, I think it is patently true that many things have occurred, great and small, which has not been recorded.
Sean
Post a Comment