Saturday, 16 March 2024

Memories And A Realization

After Doomsday.

"What [Donnan] remembered of human history told him how often a foreign invader had entered as the ally of one local faction. Romans in Greece, Saxons in Britain, English in Ireland and India, Spaniards in Mexico - If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!" (7, p. 61)

See also If Ever I forget Thee...

I was sent from England to a boarding school in the Republic of Ireland where we learned about the Norman English invasion of Ireland. 

Donnan nominally addresses Jerusalem but says it to the whole Earth: yet another Andersonian use of the Bible.

At the end of this chapter, Donnan is being pressured, to say the least, to help Kandemir. He wonders why he should resist when there is nothing left but himself. Then:

"The hell there isn't.
"The knowledge burst within him. He sat straight with an oath." (p. 63)

He offers to help. Donnan has just had what I have identified as an Andersonian moment of realization but we will have to read on to learn what is the knowledge that has burst within him.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And Strongbow first went to Ireland because a local Irish king hired him and other Anglo-Normans to fight against that king's Irish enemies. The rest, as they say, was history!

Another Andersonian moment of realization, and one I've forgotten! I sure don't think I would be as quick witted and wily as Carl Donnan.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

And in every Indian war during the expansion of white settlement in America, there were Indians on both sides.

Generally speaking, it's your neighbors you hate...

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Exactly! I also thought of how a big reason Hernando Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs was because of how he allied with neighbors of the Aztecs who hated them.

Ad astra! Sean