Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Blue Twilight

War Of The Gods, X.

Gangleri lets Hadding recuperate in a mysterious place. They seem to be in a hall but Hadding is not sure. The ceiling is too high and the end of the building too far for him to see. Also, it is:

"...full of a blue twilight." (p. 74)

Why? I find this intriguing. The first time CS Lewis read the phrase, "The Twilight of the Gods," he thought that it meant the twilight in which the gods dwelt. Maybe there is something in that idea? In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Titania's realm is the Land of Summer's Twilight. The mere mention of twilight is always evocative. (Also: WB Yeats' "Celtic Twilight.")

The hall of blue twilight is like Anderson's Old Phoenix Inn in that the hero is taken there for a brief respite but must then return to the battlefield. Shortly, Hadding, captured, will recount a myth to his guards so we will return to our "Myths Retold" theme.

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5 comments:

  1. Sean M. Brooks27 April 2022 at 08:22

    Kaor, Paul!

    I also thought of the twilight of Faerie that we see in THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS.

    Btw, I wanted to ask if the list I made below of the Time Patrol stories was correct, as regards their internal chronology:

    Time Patrol
    Brave To Be A King
    Gibraltar Falls
    The Only Game In Town
    Delenda Est
    Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks
    The Sorrow of Odin the Goth
    Star of the Sea
    The Year of the Ransom
    THE SHIELD OF TIME
    Death and the Knight

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete
  2. paulshackley2017@gmail.com27 April 2022 at 22:08

    Sean,

    I think that the order should be:

    Time Patrol
    Brave To Be A King
    The Only Game In Town
    Delenda Est
    Gibraltar Falls
    The Sorrow of Odin the Goth
    Star of the Sea
    The Year of the Ransom
    Ivory and Apes and Peacocks
    THE SHIELD OF TIME
    Death and the Knight

    Paul.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sean M. Brooks28 April 2022 at 08:21

    Kaor, Paul!

    Many thanks! I've started a second "volume" of my CODEX ANDERSONIANUS and I've been wanting an accurate listing, from the POV of Manse Everard's "chronology" of the Time Patrol stories. Also, the next time I reread those stories I would like to do it in chronological order.

    At least any listing of the Rustum stories will not present the kind of difficulties we had with the Technic stories! They were arranged chronologically in ORBIT UNLIMITED and in NEW AMERICA (the first four stories plus "The Queen of Air and Darkness").

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete
  4. S.M. Stirling30 April 2022 at 02:59

    The place Hadding is taken is Asgard, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sean M. Brooks30 April 2022 at 14:51

    Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

    With Asgard meaning Valhalla, which is why I did not feel a strong need to comment directly on this blog piece of Paul's.

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete