"The Midwest of his boyhood, before he went off to war in 1942, was like a dream, a world forever lost, already one with Troy and Carthage and the innocence of the Inuit. He had learned better than to return."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART FOUR, 1990 A. D., p. 178.
"Any of these shocks that rolled and yawed the ship underfoot could prove too much for the grip of his boot-soles upon her. Pitched out beyond the hyperdrive fields and reverting to normal state, he would be forever lost in a microsecond as the craft flashed by at translight hyperspeed. Infinity was a long ways to fall."
-"Margin of Profit," p. 166.
OK. Completely different contexts. Everard's boyhood Midwest is lost in time whereas van Rijn would have been lost in space. However, time and space are Poul Anderson's two great battlegrounds. Merseians are fought in space. Exaltationists are fought in time. And Einstein tells us that time and space are aspects of space-time.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The beginning of this blog piece of yours made me think of another "resonance," from Kipling's poem "Recessional:" the line "Is one with Nineveh and Tyre." Anderson may have had that in mind as he wrote "...one with Troy and Carthage."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Almost certainly did.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That bit from Kipling may have been in Anderson's mind either consciously or unconsciously as he was writing THE SHIELD OF TIME.
Ad astra! Sean
The bit about the midwest is also an echo of "you can't go home again".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True. But I have heard of exiles who longed to go back home even after decades. Despite the inevitable changes. The example I thought of being how Louis XVIII of France was very willing to return after 23 years of exile. And had the wit and shrewdness needed to return for good and die ON the throne. The only 19th century French monarch to succeed in doing that.
Ad astra! Sean
Of course, Louis XVIII was going back to be -king-. That compensates for a good deal..
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, but some have wondered, as did Lord Byron in his poem about him, why an aging Louis XVIII was not content to spend out his days in comfortable exile. I think Napoleon even offered the king a handsome pension if he would renounce his claim to the throne. The biography I read makes it plain Louis XVIII did have ideas and beliefs of his own. Beliefs that guided how he lived and acted.
Ad astra! Sean
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