Sherlock Homes: "The Blue Carbuncle";
James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service;
Poul Anderson's Technic History: "The Season of Forgivenes";
Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy: Jack The Bodiless, 23.
In the latter two cases, extraterrestrials respond to this particular Terrestrial festival:
Ivanhoans realize that emissaries of the Polesotechnic League are not crassly mercantile because some, at least, have a sense of the sacred;
the Concilium of the Galactic Milieu celebrates Christmas when representatives of the Human Polity are being inaugurated into the Concilium.
How will we respond to alien festivals? (If aliens have festivals, of course.) One Technic History extraterrestrial, Axor, converts to Christianity and seeks evidence of an extraterrestrial Incarnation. Anderson leaves the question open even though Flandry gets funding for Axor's research. Axor is the kind of guy who will uncover interesting facts about the Ancients even if most of us disagree with the premise of his research. Evidence of Chereionite belief in an Incarnation and even of a festival like Christmas is not automatically evidence that there was a literal Incarnation. And I did not intend to engage in debate with Axor when I started to list Christmas episodes of our favorite series.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course I have read "The Blue Carbuncle" and "The Season of Forgiveness," but I don't recall any stress being placed on Christmas in Fleming's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Fleming's James Bond does not seem to have taken an interest in philosophical and religious questions, after all. But you've just given me a reason for reading that book again!
A debate debate between you and Fr. Axor would be interesting! He would certainly listen to you with patience and courtesy, and propose his rebuttals as gently as St. Thomas Aquinas would have.
Note to self: reread Julian May's SAGA/INTERVENTION/MILIEU books sometime this coming year.
Sean
Sean,
Yes. There is festive spirit in OHMSS although Bond himself is not a reflective type. M has 007 to Christmas dinner and the domestic staff put crackers on the table but M orders them removed!
Tomorrow will be a more active day with less blogging.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I plan to visit my brother for Christmas/New Year's next month. I might take my copy of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE to read while away from home.
Sean
Sean,
461 page views by 10.18 PM today. The day started well for some reason.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good! And I hope more of those blog readers will leave their own comments in some of your comboxes. The more the better!
Sean
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