Unlike any other work by Poul Anderson, this novel does systematically lead its readers to understand (and maybe accept) a particular moral at the end of the narrative. (One memorable line somewhere in Heinlein's Starship Troopers is "You can lead a child to knowledge but you cannot make him think.")
Sandra tells Wace:
"'You do not understand?...Maybe later. Now we must hurry.'" (XV, p. 451)
Van Rijn tells Wace:
"'...it gives back talk from you too, ha?...Now is too small time for beating sense into your head. Maybe you learn for yourself...Jump!'" (XVI, p. 461)
Meanwhile, Wace, working too hard to stop and think, continues to think as before:
"Wace went off, damning himself for not giving the old pig a fist in the stomach. He would, too, come the day!" (ibid.)
"So, having enslaved his engineer, van Rijn strolled around, jollying some of the Flock and bullying some of the others - and when he had them all working their idiotic heads off, he rolled up in a blanket and went to sleep!" (p. 462)
But would the work be happening without the jollying and bullying? Van Rijn has ascertained which approach to take with different individual members of an alien species. Is Wace being unrealistically obtuse just so that the novel can work its way to its point which is already stated in the title? (Although Wace cannot know the title, of course!) The point was briefly made just before this. When Wace asked:
"'All right! But what will you be doing?'" (XVI, p. 460)
- van Rijn replied:
"'I must organize things, by damn.'" (ibid.)
The point will be spelt out at greater length at the end of the novel.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I had to laugh a bit, at the line about Old Nick enslaving his fuming engineer!
I agree, Wace was being obtuse! But I wonder how many of US would have grasped WHO was the man that counted in dangerous and frantically busy circumstances.
Sean
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