I have referred to this puzzlement somewhere before although I can't find it. When Everard asks his Tyrian guide, Pum, to tell him about himself, Pum replies:
"'There is little to tell, great lord. The annals of the poor are short and simple.'" (pp. 265-266)
Pum's response is immediately followed by these two sentences:
"That coincidence startled Everard too. Then, as Pum talked, he realized that the phrase was false in this case." (p. 266)
I am at sea. What coincidence? What had already startled Everard? What phrase? How does it turn out to be false?
The rest of the narrative flows smoothly but these two sentences could have been left out and serve only to confuse - as far as I can see.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
First, we see what I believe was a double allusion by Anderson here. I am sure he had this line from Gray's "Elegy" as quoted by the soon to be US President Abraham Lincoln to John L. Scripps (a lawyer, journalist, and early biographer of Lincoln) in 1859: " 'The short and simple annals of the poor.' That's my life, and that's all you or anyone else can make of it." I think Anderson was referring to both Gray and Lincoln.
Second, the "false" came from Everard deciding, as he listened to Pum, that the "annals" of Pum's life, at least, was not "short and simple." One of the things Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" brings out was Everard making a rare discovery in PUM. That this Tyrian youth was unusually quick witted able, and capable of learning about and making SENSE of very strange ideas.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Thank you. I know of Gray's Elegy but had not recognized this quote from it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm glad to point you to Gray's "Elegy In A Churchyard."
Ad astra! Sean
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