-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 300-302, p. 362.
"Winter brought rain, snow, rain again, flogged by harsh winds, weather that raged on into the springtime. Rivers ran gorged, meadows flooded, swamps overflowed."
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Time Patrol, pp. 467-640 AT 3, p. 494.
Anderson understands that people lived with the seasons and the elements and describes them in detail.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Poul Anderson does not hide or minimize how dreary and uncomfortable winters can be, esp. for people who lived in past, less technologically advanced times. Or, for that matter, how harsh winters can be in the future, on other planets, as we see Dominic Flandry enduring some very bad winter weather on Talwin!
Sean
Poul catches the extreme seasonality of life in the northern latitudes very well -- precisely the reason I left and moved much further south, by the way. It's the darkness I disliked; and Sean's right that it was much worse before good lighting. There's not all that much for a farmer to do in November in Poland, and without good lighting you can't even do other stuff.
In Toronto, there's a very extensive downtown system of tunnels connecting most of the major buildings -- it runs for miles and miles and ties into the subways, and it's lined with shops and so forth. With the right type of apartment building, you could avoid the surface entirely for months at a time.
When I lived there, my social circle referred to people who did that as "Morlocks".
It was a real temptation in the long dreary winters; Toronto isn't particularly cold, but you can spend four months without ever seeing anything but gray people walking through gray slush between gray buildings under a gray sky.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Thanks, again, for giving us some very interesting comments. Esp. what you said about the Morlocks of Toronto!
And I thought of not only how DARK it can in northern latitudes during winter, but also of how primitive heating and sanitary facilities were in past times. Usually by fires which had to be frequently fed with wood, peat, or coal. As for toilet facilities, the less said, the better!
I'm sure Polish peasants had a lot of free time on their hands, after routine chores were taken care, during winters. Wood carving, maybe, or playing chess? I have read, perhaps in Murray's THE HISTORY OF CHESS, of how popular that game was in Russia. The long, frigid winters would give Russians of all classes plenty of time for chess playing.
Sean
"Vodka" is another and very popular answer as to what to do in the winter. Seriously, people slept a lot and drinking was one of the two obvious fun things you could pass the time with.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
True! I forgot about how booze and sex would be esp. popular during long, dreary winters!
Sean
See also the Plus 15 of downtown Calgary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_15
In Calgary the winters are sunnier than in Toronto, but Toronto seldom gets as frigid as it often does in Calgary.
It's the slushy in between weather I don't like. I want the weather either consistently above 0 C so the biking and hiking conditions are good, or consistently below 0 C (but preferably above -20 C) so the skiing and skating conditions are good.
The technology to keep buildings warm and lit do a lot to make winters actually enjoyable. Skiing and skating are nice as long as one can go inside after.
Kaor, Jim!
But I still don't like that kind of cold weather! And I have heard of how many Canadians, who can afford it, spend the winters in US states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, or Hawaii. And I can see why!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment