Growing up in Chartertown on one of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon, Nat Falkayn learns Planha at school. Rippling Ythrian feathers express "...signs and symbols, often more meaningful than words..." (p. 412) Thus, Thuriak expresses "You are troubled...," (ibid.) non-verbally.
"Nat had learned some of the conventional attitudes as part of his Planha lessons..." (ibid.)
- but feels like a deaf-mute when he spends Freedom Week with the extended household of the Weathermaker Choth. (Choths differ; many are larger than a single household.)
The word, "attitude," has more meanings than I had thought. In Alice Through The Looking Glass, Haigha and Hatta, the Anglo-Saxon messengers, express their Anglo-Saxon attitudes by elaborate bodily postures and contortions as they come and go so maybe they would have been able to adapt Planha for human use?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Since humans lack feathers, I have my doubts it would be possible to use Planha as subtly as those who are feathered would have. But we do see Anderson making allusions to Lewis Carroll's ALICE books in quite a few of his stories. One Technic example being in A CIRCUS OF HELLS.
Ad astra! Sean
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