Elfavy of Gwydion asks what germ makes men so sick that they want to hurt their own kind:
"Raven sighed. If she couldn't even visualize homicidal mania, how explain to her that sane, honorable men found sane, honorable reasons for hunting each other?" (p. 571)
But are they sane and honourable? I am not requesting answers to that question! I am only too aware that different people will give different answers. But an sf text, by presenting a culture clash and dialogue of this kind, raises such questions and invites its readers to question their own accepted norms, whether or not the author intended that outcome or whatever answer he would have given. Sometimes the issues are bigger than our individual ideas.
Meanwhile, rereading Dornford Yates' thrillers, I find several ironic references to the viewpoint characters' enemies as "our friends." Probably any word or phrase can generate a short story. Poul Anderson ingeniously constructed a story based on a changed meaning of that word, "friends."
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm a bit surprised how you did not discuss that incident about the ancient English king and Sir Christopher Wren, at the beginning and end of "A Tragedy of Errors." I mean how words like "awful, pompous and artificial" had far different meanings in (I assume) the 1670's than in later years.
I suspect that ancient English king was Charles II.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, it was Charles II. (One of my favorite English monarchs, along with Elizabeth I).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree with your high opinion of Charles II. Antonia Fraser's biography of that monarch, ROYAL CHARLES, is one of the many books I should reread.
But I regard Elizabeth I very coldly, she's almost as bad as Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment