For previous posts on this Bible-believing character, see Ellis (scroll down) and Nordberg.
The Devil's Game, ELLIS NORDBERG, pp. 191-200.
James Blish - and I agree with him - praised CS Lewis' ability to show us his characters' innermost self-deceptions. Just one example:
"If the idea, 'Feverstone will think all the more of you for showing your teeth,' had occurred to [Mark] in so many words, he would probably have rejected it as servile; but it didn't."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 2, p. 379.
This servile idea does not even occur to Mark but he acts on it, nevertheless! Some of his motives are hidden even from himself.
How about Poul Anderson's Nordberg? Having murdered one of his competitors in the high-stakes game of Follow the Leader and considered offing another, he thinks about two others:
"...I'll have to be almighty careful. I wouldn't put murder past them." (p. 195)
Good Lord! (To appropriate Nordberg's Biblical terminology.)
He is a tasteless man, regarding Shakespeare, of all people, as an overrated windbag. (p. 192)
Christened Elias, he has had to waste hours explaining that he is not a Jew. (p. 198) Tough call, Nordberg.
Having murdered a Communist, he gloats that the man is now in hell. (p. 194)
Can we find anything whatsoever good to say about this guy?
Where should the murdered Orestes and his murderer, Ellis, go in a hypothetical hereafter? If I had any say in the design of a hereafter, then they would both go somewhere where they would be able to reflect and learn - but I am not Ellis' indignant, fiercely angry, jealous LORD. (p. 191)
9 comments:
Paul:
"He is a tasteless man, regarding Shakespeare, of all people, as an overrated windbag."
He had that view in common with George Bernard Shaw. "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his...."
Consider especially that "when I measure my mind against his" bit. I've enjoyed reading several of Shaw's plays, but Arioch help me, if I somehow met the insufferably arrogant [slur on Shaw's parentage] himself, I'd want to have a weapon handy so I could put him out of my misery. (No; that penultimate word was not a typo.)
Like wow.
David,
Unless I have misread this, Shaw despised Homer and Scott as well as Shakespeare?
Paul.
Paul:
That's the way I read it. Homer he apparently considers just as worthy of his contempt as Shakespeare; Scott isn't quite so bad. When he compares them to himself, ye gods. Conceited much, George?
Kaor, Paul and DAVID!
Paul: "Tasteless" is too mild a term for Ellis Nordberg! I've thought and I can't think of any good to say of him except that he's good at arithmetic and math.
Poul Anderson was very good at creating characters I have to somewhat reluctantly like despite them having ideas and beliefs I emphatically disagree with, or even despise! Such as Orestes Cruz.
And I would argue that we Catholics already do believe in a post mortem state of existence where some go to "reflect and learn." We call it Purgatory. Albeit, only those who die repentant of their sins will go there. Still, it's possible even Ellis Nordberd's soul might end up there.
David: Man, George Bernard Shaw sure had a high opinion of himself if he scorned Homer, Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott as inferior to HIM! Simply imagine what Shaw thought of Rudyard Kipling, another literary hero of Anderson!
Ad astra! Sean
Excessive modesty was not Shaw's problem... 8-).
In point of fact, studies have shown that decisions are often made before we're consciously aware of them. This isn't surprising -- our consciousness is not the whole of our minds by any means.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
In fairness to Shaw, I have read that he and G.K. Chesterton were good friends, despite how fiercely they disagreed on so many matters. So Shaw did have some human feelings!
Ditto, on how we so often make decisions. Consciousness is not the entirety of our minds.
Ad astra! Sean
Consciousness not the whole of our minds: I experience this in meditation. When sitting in zazen, a whole sentence or just part of a sentence comes into consciousness, as if an internal dialogue or monologue were going on just below the surface ans part of it had just emerged into consciousness. A door opens and we hear a snatch of conversation from another room.
Kaor, Paul!
I have thought as well, verbalized or not, of how there are times I decide to do or not do something without going thru an elaborately reasoned mental process laid out in words. I kind of know what I want or need to do without explicitly reasoning it out in verbalized form.
Writers like Poul Anderson or S.M. Stirling can't always simply describe what their characters are going to do. Not if they also want readers to have some idea of why the characters behaved as described. So we see them verbally thinking about why and how they are going to do what they did.
Such a process of showing internal, mental thought is probably what irks more impatient readers, interested mainly or solely in ACTION. Not just the usual complaints I've seen about the works of Tolkien and Anderson about either too much poetry or details of background description in them.
Ad astra! Sean
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