Wednesday, 27 January 2021

Everard And Flandry

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol and Dominic Flandry in the Technic History are dissimilar characters who nevertheless share certain commendable personal qualities.

Everard to his colleague, Janne Floris:

"'I guess I can mind my manners.''
"If you mind yours!"
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 6, p. 530.

Flandry to Miriam Abrams:

"'I can mind my manners.'"
-A Stone In Heaven, VI, pp. 97-98.

Yet another resonance between timelines. A second shared quality is their common ability to work hard as intelligence agents.

Flandry tells Miriam:

"'Nobody is strong in every department, and no single department is at the core of life.'" (p. 98)

How long does it take some of us to realize that?

Miriam is less good at some human responses because she has spent so long sharing the consciousness of a Ramnuan. How she does that is a suitable subject for a further post that might wait till we have walked. Still under national lockdown, we nevertheless take long, socially distanced walks for exercise.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

kaor, Paul!

I remember other characters sometimes describing Manse Everard as having old fashioned Middle American country boy manners. And meant as a compliment.

One thing I remember about Miriam Abrams' "sisterhood" with Yewwwyl was the former somewhat ruefully describing it to Flandry as happening when they were both young and perhaps a little foolish.

Miriam was a exenologist, like John Ridenour. I've wondered just now if they ever met, professionally, at a conference, seminar, academy, or convention? Perhaps not very likely, given the sheer size of the Empire, but they might have read some of each other's works.

Ad astra! Sean