We In The Galaxy

We noticed a single understated instance of first person narration in Poul Anderson's far future "Starfog":

"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones. But so vast is the galaxy - these two or three spiral arms, a part of which our race has to date thinly occupied - so vast, that we cannot even keep track of our own culture, let alone anyone else's."

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 718.

This narrator, whoever s/he is, is speaking/writing/communicating at the time when the story is set: "..to date..." S/he is a member of "...our race...," which seems to be the human race. This was not necessarily going to be the case. An earlier Technic History narrator, Hloch, was an Ythrian. The "Starfog" narrator is a member of the group that s/he addresses: "We know..." S/he identifies with a particular branch of humanity and with a particular culture as against other human ways which are "distinctive" and sometimes strange.

We - I refer now to twentieth/twenty-first century readers - contrast this tightly controlled narrative point of view with clumsier ones in other works of sf. Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation opens with an italicized quotation from an Encyclopedia Galactica article on the Mule. As soon as the unitalicized text of Chapter 1 begins, its narrator does not commence his narration but instead criticizes the article just quoted as:

"...not germane to the issue at immediate hand, and most of it too dry for our purposes in any case."

-Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation (London, 2016), p. 3.

The article addresses only economic issues but discusses neither the speed of the Mule's rise nor the sudden cessation of his expansion.

"We therefore abandon the Encyclopedia and continue on our own path for our own purposes..." (p. 4)

Who are "We..." and what are our "purposes"? The edition of the Encyclopedia quoted:

"...was published in 1020 F.E...." (p. 3)

It follows that this narrator writes several centuries, at least, after the events described and also during (or even after?) the Second Galactic Empire. OK. We do not know the circumstances of the narrator or of his/her audience so that there is an element of mystery here. 

However, when this same narrator describes a session of the Executive Council of the Second Foundation, things go awry, I think. We are told that:

"To us they are merely voices." (p. 16)

However - now I paraphrase -, an exact reproduction of the session would sacrifice comprehensibility. These psychologists understand each other so well both by general theory and by application of their theory to individuals, that they communicate fully by sentence fragments, gestures, grunts, facial twitches and even careful pauses. Really? They are not telepaths but something else.

"Which is about as far as I can go in explaining colour to a blind man - with myself as blind as the audience." (p. 17)

"We" has become "I." Plural has become singular. One commentator that I read objected to this sudden intrusion of an unexpected and unexplained first person narrator into a far future narrative. As far as that goes, I welcome any layers of mystery added by not-fully-explained narrative perspectives. However, this "I" reads suspiciously not like a far future narrator living during or even after the Second Empire but instead like the author, Asimov, directly addressing his twentieth century readers back when this story was first published. Thus, the text is not sufficiently integrated into the period when it is supposed to be written.