"...of Time" is a significant phrase in book titles, e.g.:
“Once more, he had hit the bottom of the telescope of time…” 28
This evocative phrase, “…the telescope of time…," could have become a title like Blish’s The Triumph Of Time and The Quincunx Of Time.
Remembering an experience from decades ago can resemble observing a
spatially remote event through the wrong end of a telescope. Lewis
applied precisely this image to time:
“
‘Time is the very lens through which ye see – small and clear, as a man
sees through the wrong end of a telescope - …Freedom…,’ ” 29
free will and eternal choice. Lewis
looks through the telescope of “Time” and enters an imaginatively
described Christian Eternity. Martels falls through his “telescope of
time” and enters an intellectually systematied mystical immortality.
-copied from here.
-copied from here.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It would be interesting indeed if Artos also met the spirit of his father, Lord Bear.
And we see Poul Anderson using "time" in some of the titles of some of his books: THERE WILL BE TIME, THE GUARDIANS OF TIME, and THE SHIELD OF TIME.
Sean
Sean,
And "SWORD" twice so it seems obvious to combine them. Another key word is "STARS." Heinlein has TIME FOR THE STARS and Anderson has OT TIME AND STARS.
Paul.
Paul:
Off the top of my head, without Googling, the only use of "the Sword of Time" I can recall is in the song "Suicide is Painless," which was theme for both the movie and the TV series M*A*S*H. According to Wikipedia, film director "Robert Altman had two stipulations about the song... first, it had to be called 'Suicide Is Painless'; second, it had to be the 'stupidest song ever written'." Given that challenge, Altman's fourteen-year-old son came up with the lyrics.
"The sword of time will pierce our skins;
It doesn't hurt when it begins,
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger... watch it grin...."
David,
I found the song when I googled the phrase. I am surprised that such a powerful phrase has not been used more.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Alluding to THE BROKEN SWORD and PERISH BY THE SWORD. And there's also ROGUE SWORD! And besides the examples already listed there's THE CORRIDORS OF TIME.
Yes,"star" or "stars" is a word fairly often used by Anderson in the titles of his works: WE CLAIM THESE STARS and HARVEST OF STARS, etc.
Sean
Kaor, DAVID!
Ha, ha!!! Actually, the quote you gave from the younger Altman's lyrics makes a kind of grim sense!
Sean
Then there's "the drumbeat sound of Time" in the song lyrics. Which is a powerful image, because it evokes drums (which set marching cadences), and the beat of the heart, each taking us another measured instant towards death.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Yes, I agree, a true, powerful, and evocative image!
Sean
The Sword of the Lady in the Change books embodies a certain conception of Time, among other things -- as an eternal recurrence.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
That I will need to keep in mind as I slowly reread your Emberverse books. Albeit, I am not sure I can agree. But that might be just ME speaking, descended as I am from both Christianity and the West.
Sean
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