"Wace had no idea how the sea fight as a whole was going..." (p. 476)
- because he was in it. He made some sense of the sky fight by looking up.
Two major "battles" in British labor history were:
Cable Street
Saltley Gate
I spoke to guys who were at both. What did the veteran of Cable Street see on the day? The backs of people's heads. How did he know the outcome? He read the paper the following day. (Maybe the Worker. See image.) But I know about the event by reading about it. (See also The Battle For Norway.)
What did I learn from the veteran of Saltley Gate? He said, "You can't tell me about Saltley Gate! I was there! I was there!" And that was all. I learned nothing from him.
I have also attended an event, spoken to someone else who was there and heard a completely different account. More than beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
All this reminds me of Dorothy L. Sayers' novel STRONG POISON. Lord Peter Wimsey and his friend Charles Parker explained to a person they were questioning that eyewitness testimony was and is notoriously unreliable. That the implausibly neat and tidy witness statements in mysteries was forced on their authors for reasons of practicality. That is, for detective novels faithfully reproduce the often confusing and incoherent testimony of witnesses would intolerably slow down the story.
Sean
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