We are told, of course, that Nicholas van Rijn was once young and had an earlier career and indeed he cannot have been born old already owning Solar Spice & Liquors! However, in purely literary terms, van Rijn did spring fully grown from the brow of his creator, Poul Anderson. During the course of his series, does van Rijn develop personally or psychologically or does he just grow physically older? Coya notices that he is visibly aged at the end of "Lodestar."
Van Rijn appears in:
his own sub-series of five short stories and one novel;
the first trader team story where he cameos in conversation with David Falkayn;
two novels and one short story ("Lodestar") where he co-stars with the trader team.
Thus, he appears in a total of ten works. As ever, for completeness, let us add that:
Falkayn appeared in two stories before van Rijn appointed him to lead the trader team;
Adzel appeared in one story before he joined the trader team;
there is one trader team story that does not mention van Rijn;
there are two other stories set in the Polesotechnic League period (and one of them mentions van Rijn).
Thus, there are sixteen League stories - out of a total of forty three in the whole Technic History - but I want to revisit the ten with van Rijn. Does he develop and/or do we learn more about him as the series progresses? I will look at this over a period of time, referring both to Anderson's texts and to my earlier blog posts. The former are authoritative whereas the latter are not. As ever, other observations and thoughts would be welcome.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not quite sure what you meant by Old Nick "developing" over or thru the sixteen stories in which he appears or is mentioned. We first Nicholas van Rijn in "Margin of Profit" when he was already fully developed and mature as a person. If Poul Anderson had given us even one or two Young Nick stories then we would have some idea of how he developed and changed from youth to old age.
I would have liked to have known more about van Rijn's Dutch/Indonesian origins, whether or not he was raised as a Catholic from infancy or was a convert, and some idea of his earlier experiences as a space hand, etc.
Seam
Sean,
I agree. Maybe van Rijn is what I called a "TV series" type of character who is fully defined at the outset and doesn't develop during his series. I am interested to check. The details are enjoyable to reread in any case.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Nicholas van Rijn was "fully defined" from the outset does have to mean he was LACKING in any way, as a character in the stories. He was forceful, shrewd, immensely able, exuberantly boisterous, surprisingly devout, and fond of at least partly affected malapropisms from the first moment we see him. A more than well rounded character!
Sean
Sean,
Of course not lacking. I am merely checking how the character is presented.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Understood. And how do you think you would get along with Nicholas van Rijn if you ever met him at the Old Phoenix?
Sean
Sean,
Fine over a meal and a drink but he would realize that I would not make a good recruit to his company - unless maybe there was a department that just did academic research on alien ideas?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Maybe he did! I would not be surprised if Nicholas van Rijn had an office within Solar Spice & Licquors staffed by academics and exenologists analyzing reports about many different alien planets. "Hiding Place" and "Territory" gives us good examples of how Old Nick himself did hands on exenologizing. "Territory" ends with van Rijn advising the young lady from Esperance that her superiors would do well to first STUDY a planet in depth before trying to help it.
Sean
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