Philippe Rochefort, who is confident of a date on Esperance, wants to contemplate "God's temple, the universe" but instead watches a taped talk on Ythrian evolution.
When on Esperance, he dates Eve Davisson, reminding regular readers of Poul Anderson's Technic History that Nicholas van Rijn met Joyce Davisson from Esperance. (Certain families live on certain planets over the generations but we have been through this before.) Blonde Eve and deep-brown Philippe are described as "...a pleasing contrast..." (p. 487) This reminds me of two work colleagues in Merseyside. She had fair skin and long blonde hair whereas he looked as if no gene in his body had ever been outside Africa. Since she thought that he was "beautiful," I wondered what their hypothetical children might look like. A character's physical appearance might be mentioned just once in a novel but is always before us in a film, a major difference between the two media.
Philippe and Eve also contrast in garb. Apparently, simple clothing is an old-fashioned Esperancian style whereas Philippe overdoes his dress uniform: tilted bonnet, blue tunic with gold trim, scarlet sash and cloak, white trousers and leather boots from Terra. Writing that out, I realize that it is over the top.
Eve mourns the loss of Esperancian pacifism but will not join the demonstrations. I would have liked to have read an account of a demonstration, including one of the speeches, with warcraft passing overhead. There are entire aspects of Technic civilization that we are not shown. However, Philippe tells us something about the Solar System by summarizing his biography. (This post continues the story after Philippe's conversation with Eve.) See also other posts about Philippe here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And Philippe Rochefore might descend from people coming from one of the former or current French Caribbean possessions. That might explain his genetic heritage.
So Philippe, like Flandry centuries later, was fond of colorful dress uniforms? That doesn't bother me, alto it seems a bit overdone for a simple date.
You should have mentioned that Eve was more realistic than those demonstrators. She admitted pacifism was a total and utter failure during the chaos of the Time of Troubles. During which, before the Empire arose, I am sure even the Esperancians had to build up military forces for self defense.
And take note as well of Max Abrams' scathing comments about the uselessness of pacifism in ENSIGN FLANDRY.
Ad astra! Sean
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