"He didn't want to tell them what Terra was actually like these days. (Or perhaps had always been. He suspected men are only saints and heroes in retrospect.)" (p. 369)
That last sentence is not true. Flandry is a hero in his own life-time and some people - not Flandry but maybe Axor? - are regarded as saints in their own life-times.
Flandry mentally lists what Terra is like these days:
sottish Emperors;
venal nobles;
faithless wives;
servile commons.
I am not sure what the wives have to do with it! But this list is a hint of the deeper analyses of Imperial decline presented by Chunderban Desai in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and by Dominic Flandry in A Stone In Heaven.
Tomorrow will be a day trip to the Lake District so maybe little or no blogging.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But this brief, interior listing by Flandry also reminded of Prince Cerdic's fuller critique of the Empire in "Tiger By The tail." Which Anderson characterized as oversimplified and disingenuous, but with enough truth to flick a nerve with Flandry. And the same qualifiers need to be applied to his reflections here. Not all the Emperors were sots, not all nobles were corrupt, or all of the commons servile!
And Flandry was a hero, even with some dents and nicks in his personality!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I have a sentimental fondness for the covers Chilton Books commissioned from Roger Hane for ENSIGN FLANDRY, AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, and FLANDRY OF TERRA. The Chilton edition of AGENT was the first of Anderson's books that I ever read.
Ad astra! Seam
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