Why is each of us born with a specific and different set of motivations and aptitudes? I agree with my friend, Andrea, that Fortuna rules.
"...Flandry had good reason to be complacent about his own abilities." (CHAPTER I, p. 7)
That is his ability to win a bet with Ivar del Bruno about Lady Diana Vinogradoff. I have always known people who were more confident and capable than I was in the matter of relations between the sexes but I do not envy them in other respects.
Flandry displays his callousness:
there was a woman whose name he does not remember;
she was not very good-looking even with biosculp;
he took her from fellow cadet Fenross for a joke;
he broke off with her;
she went a bit wild and died in an accident during a drunken party flying over the Saw on Venus;
Fenross has never looked at another woman;
Flandry clearly feels no sympathy for either of them.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI agree, the youthful Flandry could be callous, the downside of his very real abilities and better qualities. And, to be fair, we do see Flanddry having a moment of sympathy for Fenross later in the story.
Ad astra! Sean