Poul Anderson shared with CS Lewis the ability to articulate his characters' innermost self-deceptions and hypocrisies. The loathsome Ira Quick, calling his wife to say that he will work late, maybe all night, thinks:
"Her look pains me. I am a compassionate man." (The Avatar, XVII, p. 152)
No, Ira. "I am a compassionate man" is about you, not about her.
Dan Brodersen has an extra-marital relationship that his wife knows about and accepts whereas Quick lies although, on this occasion, his "working late" is about something else: concealing his illegal imprisonment of returned explorers. Anderson's villains do not match SM Stirling's for pure evil but they are pretty dreadful.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, when he wanted to, Poul Anderson could create pretty dreadful villains. Even if they were not on the same level of sheer depravity as Stirling's Count Ignatieff, the Draka, and the Shadowspawn.
One thing that interests me about Stirling's BLACK CHAMBER is that both the Americans and Germans are shown as being on the same moral level. Were the Germans doing, or planning to do terrible things? Yes, but so did the Americans, or they would if they, like the Germans, thought it was necessary, for the defense and existence of their country.
As for the hypocrisy of Ira Quick, one thought I had was to remember that if hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue, then it is possible for a bad to do compassionate things even if he did not mean it. I can imagine bad people pretending to be compassionate and doing compassionate things for years. And my conclusion would be that is at least better than nothing.
Sean
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