The Broken Sword, Original And Revised, Part One and The Broken Sword,
Original And Revised, Part Two by Nicholas David Rosen will be at the
top of the blog for the next week. Newer posts will appear below them.
(Nicholas' two articles are no longer at the top of the blog but this "Please note:" post will be left in place because, through a Google glitch, comments on one of the articles have appeared in the combox here.)
(Nicholas' two articles are no longer at the top of the blog but this "Please note:" post will be left in place because, through a Google glitch, comments on one of the articles have appeared in the combox here.)
16 comments:
Kaor, Nicholas!
I'm very pleased to finally see an article by you here! And I look forward to the second part of your review of THE BROKEN SWORD. For too long I was the only one writing guest articles in this blog.
I first read THE BROKEN SWORD in the 1971 revision, and loved it. And I obtained a copy of the original 1954 edition in 1980. I can confirm at once, after checking Chapter Nine, that the text of the reprint of the 1954 edition with the Michael Dirda introduction did introduce errors not found in the 1954 Abelard edition. That is, Illrede said "may' not "man," in the example you commented on.
I agree, in both versions of THE BROKEN SWORD, Anderson told us a gripping, entertaining, and fierce tale. I know come commentators, like you, have a preference for the first version. But, if Anderson himself came to favor his revision of the book, that too has to be taken into account. I would recommend readers of Anderson to get both versions of THE BROKEN SWORD and make up their minds which one they prefer.
Regards! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
Thank you for your kind words. The second part has been emailed to the esteemed Mr. Shackley, and should appear soon. I would like to clarify that my preference is for the revised edition; I thought that the review made that clear, but perhaps I was not clear enough. And thank you for your guest posts; your mention of such a guest post in a discussion elsewhere was how I first discovered the weblog.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Paul!
I made a mistake, you did say you preferred the 1971 version of THE BROKEN SWORD. I erred saying you favored the 1954 text. And I look forward to the second part of your review of THE BROKEN SWORD.
And I'm glad I was the one who alerted you to the existence of the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog.
But one think I've been puzzled about is which Person Poul Anderson substituted for another in an important scene.
Sean
Sean,
Wasn't it that Odin imPersonated Satan?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
With some effort, I found the relevant chapters in both versions of THE BROKEN SWORD: Chapters VI and XII. And after comparing them both I can see now that Odin was impersonating Satan in Chapter VI of the revised edition (and it was Satan we see in Chapter XII). I couldn't help but think that was a very dangerous thing for Odin to do, to impersonate Satan!
Sean
A Google glitch has moved 5 comments to the wrong post.
Kaor, Paul!
I did wonder why or how these comments were removed.
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
That’s an interesting thought, that it would have been dangerous for Odin to impersonate Satan, and one that didn’t occur to me. Satan doesn’t feel any obligation to help those who have thrown away their souls to him, except insofar as that help achieves further evil in the world, so he wouldn’t be likely to come to the aid of the witch.
Given that there are both old gods and new, even if human beings cannot understand how this is possible, what would relations be like between the Christian Hell and Asgard? Between the Christian Hell and Jotunheim? Would Odin and Christ be rivals for human souls and for the religious allegiance of kingdoms? If Satan took offense at an action of Odin’s, and tried to destroy him, would God intervene, and say, in effect, “Back to the place prepared for you and your angels! I have my own quarrels with the Aesir, but you don’t get to wipe them out.” Would Satan be more powerful than Odin, or the other way around? Or would each of them be more powerful within his own sphere? We known that Christians can, by Christ’s power, exorcise fauns and elves and such, but does Satan have an equivalent power against gods from another mythos?
Trying to fit Christianity, which makes universal claims, and multiple paganisms as all true in the same world leads to difficulties, to say the least. It reminds me of quantum mechanical wave-particle duality.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
In Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN, Lucifer Morningstar retires, expels the demons and the damned and gives Morpheus the Key to an empty Hell, a desirable piece of supernatural real estate. Various groups petition Morpheus to give it to them. The Aesir want it as a refuge from Ragnarok.
Paul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
You offered some very interesting thoughts and questions to my suggestion that Satan would possibly be offended at Odin impersonating him. What I had in mind, however, since I don't believe the Aesir to be gods at all, and that Satan is the most powerful of evil supernatural beings, then it was risky of Odin to affect being Satan.
Odin and Christ WERE rivals for the allegiances of the peoples who once worshiped the Aesir from about AD 900 onwards. I can see the true God intervening to prevent Satan from destroying Odin and Company (assuming the Aesir were real beings), if only because the Aesir were not wholly bad.
As for your comment about Christianity and multiple pagan religions, I think the answer is simple: only God exists and no other gods exist or can exist. Amon-Ra, Baal, Moloch, Jupiter, Odin, Shiva, etc., are literally non-entities.
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
I don’t really believe in Odin, Amon-Ra, Moloch, etc. I was playing a bit of an intellectual game by assuming the novel’s depiction of the Christian God and the Aesir as both being real to be true, and guessing at what would follow.
Odin and Christ were in a sense rivals for people’s allegiance, but only metaphorically, I believe, since there was no actual Odin. Like the author whom we both admire, remain agnostic on question of whether there is one true God, and whether he became flesh, died under Pontius Pilate, and after three days, rose from the dead. Some of us agnostics can hope.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Nicholas!
Oh, I agree, I should have made plain I knew you were simply indulging in an intellectual game.
Yes, for most of his life Poul Anderson was an agnostic about God. Albeit, he took religion seriously and treated honest believers with respect. But I have wondered how Anderson was in his later years. Certain texts in some of his later books makes me wonder if Anderson at least hoped God was real.
Regards! Sean
Nicholas,
Page views are way up. Is that your doing?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sure Nicholas helped! And Nygel and Johan's own contributions. The more variety in the kinds of people who comment on the works of Anderson and similar SF writers, the better.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I don’t know how much I had to do with your increased page views, but I did post links on my weblog, and later, after your comment, to the Lois Bujold email list, so I may have caused a few additional visits.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Paul!
And since most of the comments on Nicholas' two parter ended up here, I've found it convenient to leave further comments about his article here.
Sean
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