Telander, begining his third interstellar expedition, has learned from experience:
psychoprofiling tests miss potentialities, for good or bad, that develop in people when they traverse interstellar distances;
symbols, like officers living in officer country, are important as Ingrid will learn on a five year voyage.
Right. Poul Anderson has invested a lot of thought into the human dynamics of interstellar travel. We know that we are going somewhere with these characters. We just don't yet know where.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And one of those symbols involved Lars Telander becoming a remote and fount of authority and legitimacy. Rather like the Tennos of Japan, highly revered but seldom exercising direct authority (usually the day to day governing was done by Shoguns or Prime Ministers). It was Igrid Lindgren and Charles Reymont who had to take on the day to day managing of Leonora Christine, in the Captain's name. I don't think the author of the criticisms of TAU ZERO I saw at the "Golden Apples" website quite understood that.
Sean
Thank you, Sean. My reading of most of PA's work was when I was much younger, and I was reading it for entertainment and not for deep literary effect. That being said, I have to agree with the Golden Apple's writer in a general way- I do not find most of PA's protagonists as the kind of people I've met or *know- I'd love to attend a party or a dinner Old Nick put on, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to work for him. If PA's works were movies, I'd watch them for the cinematography and design, sometimes for the direction, and rarely if ever for the character development.
Cheers,
Keith
*It just occurred to me that very few (if any) or PA's characters are the kind of people who would read PA's books! They're too busy doing necessary and difficult things, which is what tall, strong, confident, Euro-American natural leaders DO.
Kaor, Keith!
I have to disagree with you. I have wondered how I would do working for Old Nick! He was a tough boss but also a just man in his own way. And he respected men not afraid to argue with him, or even to defy him.
I also disagree with what you said about Nicholas van Rijn (and by implication, Flandry) in the cultural/literary sense. More than once I've seen mentions of how well read, even cultured Old Nick was (never mind his partly put on malapropisms and loud blustering). And we know Flandry read widely and deeply despite a very busy life (we see mention of him having read Machiavelli, the Bible, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning).
It might be a cliche, but I PREFER to read stories about strong, confident, natural leaders DOING what needs to be done. Do you think I WANT to read stories about weak, wimpy, indecisive, leaders? How depressing! I find Alfred the Great far more inspiring than his hapless, ineffectual descendant Ethelred II, the Unready.
Sean
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