"'...I gathered impressions of their individual feelings as respects the present imbroglio.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606, AT Chapter XVII, pp. 555-556.
"Imbroglio" is certainly Jeeves language. But when Chives says:
"'I say...you chaps might pitch in a bit, don't you know.'" (p. 562) -
- he sounds more like Bertie Wooster. This frivolous speech struck me as inappropriate immediately after Kossara had been shot. In this fight, we learn that a Shalmuan's tail can be used to strangle. (The other day, on Lancaster canal, I watched a swan twisting its neck around to clean its feathers and was struck by how the neck resembled an arm. On Larry Niven's Pierrson's Puppeteers, two limbs are both arms and necks.)
Chives continues:
"'They sheltered me only after I had convinced them I was a revolutionary from my own society...'" (p. 556)
When Wooster's friend, Bingo Little, becomes engaged to a revolutionary, Jeeves rescues Bingo from such an ill-advised liaison by attending a rally, posing as a revolutionary and denouncing Bingo as an aristocratic spy!
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
In showing us how Chives spoke, I think it's possible Poul Anderson was, in part, modeling him on both Jeeves, and Mr. Bunter, Lord Peter Wimsey's butler/man servant. I wouldn't be surprised if Anderson had read both Wodehouse and Dorothy L. Sayers.
That said, I can see why it sounded frivolous for Chives to have spoken as he had done. Something like this would be more likely: "You should pitch in, we need help!" Briefer and more EMPHATIC.
Sean
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