Poul Anderson Appreciation: Four Senses In Archopolis

Wednesday 4 April 2018

Four Senses In Archopolis

"The bathrobe flapped around [Flandry's] ankles as he strode to the trnsparency and stood raggedly smoking. Through a light rain and an early dusk, the city flashed hectic, as far as vision could fare. Within this room, the odor of roses and the lilt of a Mozart concerto receded toward infinity."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER TWELVE, p. 320.

Sounds: flapping bathrobe; Mozart.
Colors: dusk; a flashing city.
Odors: tobacco; roses.
Taste: tobacco (and they have just feasted).

We remember that the word "hectic" was used when Manse Everard of the Time Patrol looked out the window of his apartment in New York. See here.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...: Kaor, Paul!

I'm reminded of how we see Flandry in only three chapters of THE GAME OF EMPIRE. Which is not bad, he was approaching seventy after all. Getting too old and high ranking for field work. Here Anderson tries to evoke a sense of anxiety and foreboding by using words like "hectic."

Besides Manse's NYC apartment, there's also the wall transparency of Nicholas van Rijn's Chicago Integrate penthouse thru which we see him GLARING at the end of "The Master Key."

Sean; 4 April 2018 at 15:24