(A tiger is the Terrestrial equivalent of a New Lemurian ilnya.)
The New Lemurians have:
grown up among superstitions;
never learned scientific method;
good reason not to challenge Dzenko's blatant deceptions.
The third point is the clincher.
Hector's bagpipes kill the aged ilnya that plays the role of the ogre! Please (re)read the novel to find out how this happens. It has probably been remarked before that the sound of bagpipes is like a secret weapon but this time it is literally true.
The sound serves another purpose. The New Lemurians standing outside the cave flee when they hear what they think are:
"'...the Demon's shrieks and roars...'" (7, p. 75)
When Hector is told that there were shrieks and roars, he asserts that he "'...heard naught...'" (ibid.) but then realizes that these hideous sounds must have been drowned by "'...yon sweet melodies...'" (ibid.) of the pipes! A comedy of errors develops.
Hector says that the dishonesty is legitimate statecraft:
"'Turnin' his own guile against the Sassenach.'" (ibid.)
He has a very broad conception of "Sassenach." However, England does have a reputation for duplicity. See Perfidious Albion.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I could say in Albion's defense that practically all nations which were more than minor and helpless catspaws have indulged in duplicity! It's practically a sine qua non of successful diplomacy, after all.
Sean
The English got a reputation not only for duplicity, but for sanctimonious hypocrisy about it -- partly because English politicians had to sugarcoat things for middle-class audiences long before other European governments felt any need to do so.
Disraeli said of Gladstone that what he resented was not the Grand Old Man's keeping an ace up his sleeve, but his insistence that God had put it there; ie., his moralistic humbug.
Granted, Gladstone almost certainly sincerely believed his own blather, which was hard for a thoroughgoing cynic like Disraeli to believe.
Democracy makes politicians less honest, in some respects. Bismarck once said that: "There are three great swindles abroad in Germany today; the socialist swindle, the religious swindle, and my nationalist swindle."
You couldn't say something like that in public today.
Certainly not.
CS Lewis makes a ludicrous attempt to sanctify English duplicity in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH:
"'Is it any wonder they call us hypocrites? But what they mistake for hypocrisy is really the struggle between Logres and Britain...
"'If we've got an ass's head, it is by walking in a fairy wood.'" (THE COSMIC TRILOGY, THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH CHAPTER 17, 4, pp. 739-740)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
ha! I remember that bit about Disraeli's irritation with what he considered Gladstone's blathering hypocrisy from THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, during one of Yasmin's visions from the past.
Disraeli might have been a cynic, but he had his own ideas and ideals, as Russell Kirk discussed in THE CONSERVATIVE MIND. It was largely Disraeli who saved a Tory party bewildered and baffled by the changes of the 19th century, transforming it into the Conservative Party.
And, yes, democracy forces most politicians to become hypocrites. Because of the need to "sugarcoat" the often harsh and bloody needs of statecraft. Few politicians dare to be as candid as Bismarck or Churchill were.
Sean
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