"'...the storm was more violent than would've been possible on Earth. We could only run before it and pray.
"At least, I prayed, and imagined that Enherrian did.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 117.
Next, a double space between paragraphs indicates a change of point of view (pov). Now we are on Gray although with Pete's third person pov, not with his first person narration to the outer narrator. Nevertheless, we understand that this is the experience that Pete recounts to his colleague.
That violent storm is now described as if we were in it:
"Wind shrieked, hooted, yammered, hit flesh with fists and cold knives. Waves rumbled in that driven air, black and green and fang-white, fading from view as the sun sank behind the cloud-roil which hid it." (ibid.)
The description continues but our present focus is on how well Anderson handles the transition from a serious conversation on Lucifer to a life-threatening situation on Gray. (Quite well, so far.) Even more important than the storm is what Pete is about to go through personally. As part of this, he will learn that the Ythrians certainly do not pray...
The transition back from Gray to Lucifer:
"'Have I misunderstood?' asked Enherrian anxiously. 'Did you not wish her to give God a battle?'
"Even on Lucifer, the nights finally end. Dawn blazed on the tors when Pete finished his story."
-op. cit., p. 131.
What an experience! When an Ythrian of the New Faith faces death, he does not pray for more life but honors God by fighting Him to the death - even though God the Hunter stoops on all. Enherrian's question, just before the transition back to Lucifer, shows the Christian Peter Berg that the Ythrians' faith is not his.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And, because of how I like chess, I appreciated how Peter Berg and the unnamed narrator of "The Problem of Pain" spent much of their "down time" on Lucifer playing chess. And an appropriate cover illustration for the story!
Of course a Christian can and should pray for life if that is possible. Otherwise the ideal is to trust in God if that is not likely. And I thought Enherrian showed a serious lack of imagination if he thought non Ythrians would react to fatal illnesses or injuries by FIGHTING God.
There is much I would disagree with in the Ythrian New Faith.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment