Plik thinks that Iern is disturbed because, by conversing with Vanna, he finds himself "'...in a foreign myth.'" (p. 268) According to Plik, Vanna has the ultimate Gaean soul just as St. Francis of Assisi and St. John of the Cross have two aspects of the ultimate Christian soul. Which aspects?
Plik thinks that a deep conflict of mystiques is transforming people and civilizations into archetypes reenacting ancient myths because only myth and music can address certain truths. Apollonian Domain and Arthurian Maurai are in conflict with Orphic Gaeanity and Faustian Northwest Union. Demons attack gods of sky, sea and earth and the coming war will end the world.
Iern, horrified, reassures himself that Plik is not a prophet. However, he is a poet. Judaeo-Cristian scripture begins with "Moses and the prophets" whereas Classical literature begins with "Homer and the poets" but both of these beginnings were regarded as divinely inspired authorities on theology and morality.
I once read that a poet who is too close to his audience merely tells them what they want to hear and that a poet who is too far ahead of his audience is a voice crying in the wilderness whereas a poet who gets it right tells his audience what they need to hear in terms that they understand. We might have exhausted Plik and his implications for the time being.
Some sf is futuristic travelogues. Orion Shall Rise takes on this aspect. CHAPTER FIFTEEN has introduced Iern to Gaeanity and CHAPTER SIXTEEN, which I cannot handle at this time of night, begins by referring to "His first month in the Northwest Union..." which "...turned into a voyage of discovery." (p. 272)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I must have read ORION SHALL RISE at keast twice, and I never thought of the conflicts we see in that book the way Plik does. My prosaic mind thought of these conflicts simply as the Maurai trying to preserve a status quo that favored it against those who resented or opposed it (India and the Northwest Union). A conflict complicated by Europaian quarrels also becoming involved.
Ad astra! Sean
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