Luke 4:18

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIII.

Matthew Edmonds, a Quaker who runs a station on the Underground Railway, tells the three men who are hunting an escaped slave:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

-copied from here. 

This is Luke 4:18 and yet another Andersonian Biblical quotation. Poul Anderson's narrative moves into an indefinite future, taking the message of liberation with it.

Who Is Next?

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIII.

With each new chapter, we ask:

Which character(s) will be immortal?

Will a familiar immortal have a new name?

Or will there be a new immortal?

Or both?

The first character to appear here is Matthew Edmonds. The name is unfamiliar but that does not matter. Next is an escaped female slave whom the Edmonds family conceal in their attic. One of the men tracking her tells Edmonds:

"'...she ain't jest any old runaway off a plantation. They's somethin' queer about her, somethin' real wrong.'" (pp. 263-264)

She is our candidate. In fact, she can hardly be anything else but, as far as this blog is concerned, anything else will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Have a good night.

Divine Wind

The Boat Of A Million Years, X.

Some readers might think that I have missed a point, then find that I return to address it. Many readers will know that I have missed a point because I do not know most of this history that Poul Anderson deals with.

Asagoa tells Tu Shan that the Divine Wind wrecked Mongol ships. I already knew that kamikaze meant "Divine Wind" but it was good to read about the historical winds. 

People my age do not remember the War but do remember hearing about it as a recent event. It had a long shadow as I have said here before but maybe eighty years later we are getting out of that shadow. In Ian Fleming's second last James Bond novel, published in 1964, twenty years after D-Day, Tiger Tanaka, the Head of the Japanese Secret Service, tells Bond that he had volunteered for kamikaze but the War ended first. Both Bond and Poul Anderson's character, Manse Everard, had been in the War before their series began. Everard time travels back to 1944. Bond, like most human beings, can only reminisce.

Boat has yet to arrive at World War II.

Shifting POVs

The Boat Of A Million Years, XII.

In the opening paragraph, the omniscient narrator describes young men galloping over the plain. There is yet another bird of prey:

"A hawk rode the airflows..." (p. 241)

In the opening sentence of the second paragraph, the narrator informs us that children see the approaching riders. The second sentence takes us into the viewpoint of the oldest boy who becomes:

"...filled with importance..." (ibid.)

The boy is called Little Hare and we see the last of his pov (point of view) at the end of the third paragraph on p. 242. He has passed the message about the returning hunters to the berdache, Three Geese, who succeeds Little Hare as viewpoint character and relays the information to his father, the shaman called Deathless. We then read a third person account of Deathless walking out to meet the hunters and conversing with their leader, Running Wolf. 

Deathless becomes the pov character when he reenters the stockade:

"Upon his own entry, he found tumult." (p. 246)

"Insight escaped him." (p. 248)

- although most of the narration remains impersonal.

His pov ends when:

"...he slept." (p. 251)

There should then be a double space between paragraphs because the text continues with an external scene and an account of an attack on the village. A man bounding from the lodge, recognizable to us as Deathless, is described in the third person. The rest of the narrative is impersonal, including another dialogue between Deathless and Running Wolf.

Piers And Pier

This is another quick one. (Our granddaughter is visiting. She and Sheila are engrossed in colour schemes for our new house so I have some time to myself.)

I know nothing of Piers Plowman except the title. However, I do recognize when another author is having a joke at his expense:

"'...a Breton trader named Pier, of Ploumanac'h...'"

-The Boat Of A Million Years, XII, p. 223.

- was a former identity of our friendly neighbourhood immortal, Hanno.

I see that Piers Plowman refers to the Robin Hood literary tradition. For the relevance of that tradition to Poul Anderson, see British Mythology.

In whichever direction we look, we find literary links and conceptual connections. This seems to be literally endless.

Four Rivers

The Boat Of A Million Years, XII. 

"The village stood on a bluff overlooking a broad, shallow river and the cottonwoods along the banks." (p. 244)

"...the broad brown river and its trees..." (p. 253)

Compare the locations of the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene and the main base of Havig's group in the Pleistocene, both here, and a river in an emulation, here.

Time is like a river.

Deathless says:

"'Time has overtaken me.'" (p. 256)

- and:

"'If I have learned anything in my lifetimes of years...it is that there is no 'always.'" (ibid.)

He departs. Another immortal wanders the world. And Chapter XIII takes us somewhere else.

Change

The Boat Of A Million Years, XII.

"Change" is both a noun and a verb. Thus, we can write: "Change changes." And it does. In X, Tu Shan and his villagers knew cyclical seasonal changes but not unprecedented historical changes. In XII, the immortal shaman, Deathless, has known the births and deaths of generations who hunted buffalo that approached to within walking distance of their dwellings but now sees the greater kills and the consequent tribal expansion caused by young men who have learned to hunt on horseback.

Youthful Deathless tells his aged son:

"'Yes, my son, I have known change. I have felt time rush by like a river in flood, bearing the wreckage of hopes downstream out of sight'" (p. 250)

He has tried to protect his people from the flood but now cannot. An elder is appalled when Deathless tells him that he does not seek omens because:

"'The future has become too strange...'" (p. 253)

That is the message of science fiction. The future is unknowable but will be different.

Deathless And A Berdache

The Boat Of A Million Years, XII, The Last Medicine. 

Starting to read or reread a new chapter means adjusting to a whole new period as well as to a new location. This makes demands on the reader. XII features someone called "Deathless" who is:

"...the mightiest of all shamans..." (p. 241)

- so we start to infer where we are and also to expect to meet another immortal.

A boy asks a berdache (unrecognized by my computer) to carry a message to the shaman. The President of the United States has just decreed that there are only two gender identities. There is a continual interplay between Poul Anderson's works and what is happening on Earth Real while we are reading them.

We will have to tackle the sixteen pages of XII tomorrow, Sunday, when we might have time to learn what Deathless has to deal with which I have completely forgotten. It will be very different from the issues addressed by Richelieu, Tu Shan and others back through the history of the world. We are racing through history into futurity as the Time Traveler put it.

The Reasons Why Not

The Boat Of A Million Years, XI.

Richelieu points out to Hanno first that publicity about immortals would destabilize an already unstable period even further and secondly that most existing rulers would cage or kill immortals especially if anyone suggested that the latter might make good philosopher kings! Sf readers remember what happened when the Howard Families came out about their longevity in Methuselah's Children. Different novels, different authors, different periods, different timelines - but one sf discussion about speculative and extrapolative ideas like longevity and immortality. Hanno would like more time to argue his case but Richelieu, aged, unwell and extremely preoccupied, does not have more time. (Sickness, old age and death are three of the four sights in Buddhism.) Richelieu does well to let Hanno leave unmolested instead of caging or killing him there and then.

The natural punctuation of their discussion continues:

"The wind and the river rustled." (p. 236)

"The clock ticked, the wind blew, the river flowed." (p. 239)

When Hanno has left, Richelieu sits and thinks while sunlight lengthens. The kitten has its own life unaware of these issues.

(One of Olaf Stapledon's Last Men says that a First Man transported to Neptune would be as unaware of most of what was happening around him as a cat in London is of finance.)

Hanno's attempts to join with Aliyat and to gain patronage from Richelieu have failed. He has time to persevere. 

Reiteration

I have only got a moment so will just use it to reiterate:

4 volumes about the League;

1 volume about Ythrians;

1 volume about both League and Ythrians;

3 stories about neither League nor Ythrians -

- and 3 stories make 1 more volume. These 7 to be followed by the 9-volume Flandry Period and its 1-volume sequel. So I stand by 17 volumes for Poul Anderson's Technic History. 

Back to current concerns soon.

Silence And Sounds

The Boat Of A Million Years, XI, The Kitten and the Cardinal.

When Hanno has urged Richelieu to accept his request and offer:

"Silence fell again, except for the wind, the river, a ticking clock and the kitten..." (p. 233)

Silence underlines a significant stage in the dialogue. The wind is present because it always is. A ticking clock explicitly means the passage of time. Time has been compared to a river. The kitten is a trademark of the Cardinal as also indicated by this chapter's title.

I unreservedly recommend eBay. It is so easy to order that it can almost be done by accident. My copy of Poul Anderson's Genesis has gone astray during a house move. It will probably come to light but meanwhile I have ordered and received an identical copy in better condition. My original paperback The Earth Book Of Stormgate has all but disintegrated, although I will keep it, but I have now ordered an original hardback.

Welcome everyone to the month of February.

A Long Time

The Boat Of A Million Years, 1-XI.

Asagoa and Tu Shan have set out into the world together but we do not yet know precisely what they will do. Hanno has tried but failed to get a research program launched under the auspices of Cardinal Richelieu. Aliyat and Svoboda still wander alone. And this is not yet even the full compliment of the eight eventual "Survivors."

Moral: Anything worthwhile takes a long time to happen. It is a long and rocky road. And we already know this from the evolution of life, consciousness and intelligence and from the emergence of civilization and science. Thus, these immortals stand for us all. No individuals, as far as we know, have lived through history but we can study it and make our observations. We have got as far as we have and we hope to go further  - not into interstellar empires maybe but they would be better than nothing! Now I do want to do some other reading but we will return to Boat soon.

Hanno And Richelieu

The Boat Of A Million Years, XI, The Kitten and the Cardinal. 

This chapter, recounting Hanno's conversation with Cardinal Richelieu, creates the impression of abruptly jumping the narrative into comparatively modern history although it is set only seventy years after Asagoa's and Tu Shan's sojourn on the foothills of the Tibetan mountains. Times change more quickly in some parts of the world than in others. That is all. 

I never knew Richelieu's full name or that he was a duke as well as a Cardinal. Church-state separation!

 James Joyce wrote:

 O Ireland my first and only love

Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove!

-copied from here.

(I had thought that these lines ended with "land" and "hand," not with "love" and "glove," so it has been helpful to look them up.)

Hanno approaches Richelieu not because he is a clergyman - a potential Pope! - but because he wields power in turbulent times. The French Revolution is just under a century and a half away - a very short time in history or for an immortal. Richelieu shrewdly decides against risking even greater turbulence. The existence of immortals remains a secret until a remote future. 

A New Alliance

The Boat Of A Million Years, X, In The Hills.

A young-looking woman, who turns out to be Asagoa, tracks down a Methuselan "Master," who turns out to be Tu Shan. Thus, no new immortals in this chapter but a new alliance. Now there are two teams: Hanno and Rufus; Asagoa and Tu Shan. In the latter partnership, it is she that has to save him from stagnation and to motivate movement:

"'Change rushes through the world unbridled...We'll find advantages to take.'" (4, p. 220)

Neither Tu Shan's primitive village nor the whole Chinese Empire can last forever. The immortals might lend money at interest...! 

Wind punctuates dialogue:

"[Elder Tsong] nodded. The wind ruffled his thin white beard." (1, p. 205)

When Asagoa has declared herself and the two immortals stare at each other:

"The wind boomed outside." (2, p. 210)

That ever expressive wind ruffles the Elder but booms for his elders!

Seasons pass:

"Autumn comes early in the high hills." (1, p. 204)

"Winter struck with blinding snow..." (3, p. 213)

""Springtime came back, and that year it was mild..." (5, p. 220)

That mild spring marks their departure from the village whose folk tally months but not years. Asagoa has shown Tu Shan that there are social and civilizational changes beyond the merely cyclical seasonal changes.

He had said:

"'The years blur together, they become one, the dead are as real as the living and the living as unreal as the dead." (2, p. 211)

The living unreal! That is a sinking down into an undifferentiated sameness instead of a rising up into an enhanced clarity. Tu Shan has let the sacred texts succumb to damp and decay because he cannot read them although his villagers believe that he can. Dishonesty has set in. Asagoa saves/rescues/liberates the supposed Master instead of vice versa. Maybe these immortals are starting to go somewhere at last. (Maybe.)

The Times

There is a kind of excitement associated with living in troubled, "interesting," times. Life ceases to be routine. Change might be for the better or, at least, things will be different. Poul Anderson conveys this sense in:

Mirkheim

The People Of The Wind

The Day Of Their Return

The Game Of Empire

- four novels in his Technic History. This future history series is about social change. There is a generation gap and a sense of growing corporate menace in "Lodestar," the short story that precedes Mirkheim.

This is the time of the evening when, sometimes, comparisons are made with other reading. Garth Ennis conveys the sense of an accelerating crisis - something will happen but no one knows what - in his graphic fiction series, The Boys. If superheroes existed, then why should they not just take over everything? Who or what would stop them? Read Garth Ennis.

Varvara And Ghosts

The Boat Of A Million Years, IX, Ghosts.

Poul Anderson plays tricks. Chapter VIII introduces a new immortal called Asagoa who will become a Buddhist nun. IX seems to introduce a new immortal called Varvara who ceases to be a Christian nun. However, Varvara turns out to be Svoboda. The convent had not kept her longevity secret. It was coming to be regarded as a miracle. However, the convent is destroyed and everyone but Varvara/Svoboda killed. She has been raped and knocked unconscious but is resilient enough to survive.

Varvara remembers that the Lord went before Israel as smoke by day and fire by night. This is another Biblical reference. Was the Lord a volcano? Was the Ark of the covenant an electricity generator?

She sees "the Heaven Path," (p. 196) another description of the galaxy.

"Ghosts" are the people and gods that Varvara has known and outlived. She prays to:

"...Dazbhog of the Sun, the Protector..." (p. 196);

"...Earth, Mother of All..."(ibid.);

God.

"Earth and sun, moon and stars, wind and rain and human love, she could understand the old gods better than she understood Christ. But they were forsaken by man, remembered only in dances and feasts, fireside tales and fireside spirits; they were ghosts." (pp. 201-202)

Not forsaken then: we cannot forsake earth, sun, moon, stars, wind, rain, human love, dances, feasts, firesides, tales, spirits, ghosts!

In chapter X, Asagoa meets Tu Shan but I do not think that I can tackle that tonight.

Asagoa

The Boat Of A Million Years, VIII, Lady in Waiting.

Reference to the Shogun clarifies that VIII is set in Japan, not in China as wrongly stated here. This shows how difficult it can be to keep track of Poul Anderson's many historical periods. 

Asagoa writes a verse that ends:

"Twig calls to twig through the wind." (p. 182)

Her friend says:

"'It is true, it is eerie, the years have scarcely touched you, if at all. You could pass for a woman of twenty. But your age is - what?'" (p. 188)

This had to come. At last we get to the point. Tired of concealment and deception, Asagoa will go on permanent pilgrimage from shrine to shrine as a wandering nun who will be protected by respect for her status and no one will see her for too long. 

Another eventual "Survivor."

Many Milieus

The Boat Of A Million Years.

Each chapter requires us to enter into a new sociohistorical milieu. Examples:

"To Yen Ting-kuo, subprefect of the Tumbling Rock district, came an inspector from Ch'ang-an, on an errand from the very Emperor." (II, p. 33)

"A ship was loading at the Claudian dock." (III, p. 47)

"The caravan to Tripolis would leave at daybreak." (IV, p. 70)

"It is told in the saga of Olaf Trggvason..." (V, p. 108)

"Where mountains began their long climb to Tibet..." (X, 1, p. 203)

"Armand Jean de Plessis de Richlieu, Cardinal of the Church, first minister to His Most Christian Majesty Louis XIII..." (XI, p. 221)

"Over the plain from the north the young men came a-gallop." (XII, p. 241)

"The ranch house was small..." (XIV, 1, p. 275)

"This was not the forest of old..." (XVII, p. 344)

"As it came out of the darkness that had severed it from Hanno, his machine self came back to him." (XIX, p. 455)

(Machine self: some of the ancients have lived into an sf future.)

These are the most in your face examples and they are the majority.

In each chapter, it must be gradually disclosed that at least one character has lived longer than usual. In two cases, Hanno spins an elaborate yarn before confirming that the yarn is true.

In Chapter VIII, we are again in China (Later: This is an error. See the next post.) but over a millennium later and in a different stratum of the social hierarchy.

Monasteries are a good place to conceal longevity. The community will keep it quiet and might regard it as a miracle or as a sign of divine favor. In VIII, Asagoa becomes a Buddhist nun whereas, in IX, Svoboda ceases to be a Christian nun. Nothing lasts forever.

Apart from blogging, I am reading a biography and a graphic novel and watching a video. Not all at the same time. This evening, Holocaust Memorial followed by choir for Sheila and a meeting for me. More blogging soon.

Revisiting The Earth Book

I know that I have listed good points about Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate more than once but am still not sure whether I have compiled a comprehensive list. Let's try again:

the Earth Book is the fifth Polesotechnic League volume and the second Ythrian volume;

it completes the story of the Polesotechnic League and almost completes the story of human-Ythrian interactions;

it refers to the Terran Empire although not to Dominic Flandry because that character has not been born yet;

its twelve new introductions and one new afterword substantially enhance the Technic History by adding background information about historical periods and even about the later lives of some of the characters;

it itself is a single volume future history series because its opening instalment is set during the first Grand Survey (pre-League), its closing instalment is set during the second stage of the colonization of Avalon (post-League) and its additional material is fictitiously written in an even later period after the Terran-Ythrian War;

it completes the first phase of the Technic History and prepares the way for the second.

Rereading of The Boat Of A Million Years will resume shortly.

Introducing The Eight

The Boat Of A Million Years.

I have reread, out of order, Chapters XIX and 1-VII and have some recollection of Chapters VIII-XVIII which I will reread. If anything that I now say about later chapters turns out to be mistaken, then I will correct it later. As far as I am aware and can remember, seven of the eight eventual "Survivors" each have an introductory chapter entirely unto themselves, the only exception being Svoboda whose introductory chapter guest stars Hanno although neither of them makes the connection yet. 

So far, we have met four of the eight: Hanno, Tu Shan, Aliyat and Svoboda - also Nornagest, Starkadh and Rufus but these three are not Survivors.

I thought that this post was going to be longer but that summarizes the state of play and frees me to do other things like paying workmen and reading about the enigmatic Krishnamurti.

Seek the Tao.

The Story So Far

The Boat Of A Million Years.

Attempts to organize the immortals move slowly. Rufus has joined Hanno but, apart from that:

Tu Shan is on his own;

Starkadh refuses to join Nornagest and both die;

Rufus and Hanno meet Svoboda but without recognition;

Hanno finds Aliyat but she sells him out and he barely escapes with his life.

It is 1050 and, so far, the allied immortals comprise only Hanno and Rufus although they now know that there is at least one other.

The following chapter is set only twenty-two years later but will not be reread tonight.

Onward and downward - at least for now.

Britannia

The Boat Of A Million Years, VII.

Somewhere in the pages that I have recently reread was a reference to the galaxy as "the Winter Road." Maybe someone reading after me can find the reference?

In 1072, Cadoc wonders how long the wealth of Constantinople will last but thrusts sadness aside. He does not have a time traveler's knowledge of what is to come but has lived long enough to read the signs and has also said that the trade in which he is involved is spinning toward ruin.

He tells Athenais/Aliyat:

"'I have not been in Britannia, or England and Wales as they call it nowadays, for a rather long time.'" (p. 161)

England and Wales! We recognize a gradual approach to modern place names. Just six years before this, the Normans had conquered England. 

Cadoc also remembers the time:

"'...when Old Rome departed from Britannia...'" (p. 166)

This reminds us of other works by Anderson. For an sf writer, he has spent a lot of time in the past.

The Poignant Chapter

The Boat Of A Million Years, VI, Encounter.

Svoboda has gone to Kiev to be betrothed to the man who will be her fourth husband. She has outlived three and must move from countryside to city to find a fourth. We begin to realize her nature. She is rescued from a street assault by Cadoc/Hanno and Rufus. Rufus has meanwhile lost his right hand in a fight. Immortals' teeth grow back but not hands. We realize that we are reading a serial or series that could have been published as such. Hanno, now Cadoc, and Rufus have become continuing characters and we cannot be shown everything that happens to them over the centuries. Cadoc and Svoboda spend time together, neither realizing that the other is immortal! - although she lets slip something that should have alerted him. We expect that they will meet again.

Chapter VII begins on a facing page and is set only twenty-two years later. Cadoc and Rufus are about to visit a courtesan who we might guess is Aliyat. Maybe the action is speeding up? 

My time is now divided between blogging and reading a book about Jiddu Krishnamurti, which might mean fewer posts for a while. Theosophists believed that the World Teacher who had spoken through Krishna and Jesus also spoke through Krishnamurti, which is relevant to some recent posts.

What people are capable of doing and believing is extraordinary.

Religion

Religion comes up a lot here, doesn't it? Poul Anderson deals with individuals and populations in past, alternate and future historical periods so of course he presents accounts of their:

Economics

From the dynamic capitalism of the Polesotechnic League to the abundant production of Thule (also Thulean Economics).

Politics

Debates in the Ysan Council and the Dennitzan Shkoptsina.

Religions

Both human and alien.

I should not use this blog as a personal pulpit but I can link to another blog about Religion and Philosophy, e.g.:

My House Of Lords

I will shortly add a new post on "My Pantheon."

Later: My Pantheon: The Nine.

Nornagest And Starkadh

OK. Nornagest and Starkadh are two pre-Andersonian legendary figures. In Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, they have heard of each other. Nornagest tracks down Starkadh and confirms that they are both immortals although Starkadh refuses to join forces. (His idea of cooperation would have been along the lines of: "I'll conquer one half of the world and you conquer the other half.") Both are introduced in Chapter V of Boat and both have died by the end of that chapter. They do not meet any other immortals. Thus, Chapter V is independent of the rest of the novel. From VI onward, we are back with continuing characters who will come together in the twentieth century and beyond.

Onward and upward.

Nornagest And The Wind (What Else?)

The Boat Of A Million Years, V, 1-2.

Nornagest does not conceal that he is unusually old but does conceal how old, except to Starkadh who refuses to cooperate.

After a battle, Nornagest composes a verse which ends:

"...the wind called souls away." (p. 112)

He tells Starkadh:

"'I feel myself grow ever wearier of roving the earth among the winds.'" (p. 123)

When he wills himself dead:

"The candleflame flickered to naught. Nornagest lay still. Through the hall sounded a wind of the oncoming winter." (p. 131)

Before that, there is one of Poul Anderson's frequent Biblical quotations:

"Come unto me, all ye that labor..." etc (p. 130)

- and another right at the end of the novel:

"When I consider thy heavens..." etc (XIX, pp. 599-600)

Nornagest

The Boat Of A Million Years, V.

In King Olaf's court, the priest Conor presses guests about:

"'...the true and only God...'" (p. 109)

If I had any say in the matter, then that priest would be preaching in a church or in a city square but would not be resident at court and hassling the king's guests! He thinks that his God might return in a few years' time, in 1000 AD. And we have made it to 2025! St. Paul had expected the Second Coming with the completion of his mission to the Gentiles and while some of the disciples were still alive.

Concerning Nornagest, some men at Olaf's court ask:

"...how any man could have fared so widely or been so old." (p. 108)

- a sure sign that we are in the presence of another immortal. Indeed, this chapter would not contribute to the novel if we were not. And Nornagest tells Olaf:

"'I am older than I seem, lord.'" (p. 109)

The time for keeping quiet about mutant longevity has still not arrived.

Nornagest claims to have met Starkadh and to correct errors about him.

This chapter is structured like the previous one. The opening section is unnumbered. Section 1 is a flashback. Section 2 returns us to Nornagest speaking in Olaf's court. The following chapter will take us somewhere else, although only fifty-two years later in this case.

Olaf And Nornagest

Sometimes I remember having read a phrase in one of Poul Anderson's works and would like to quote that particular phrase here but cannot find it in the text. Something that Hanno thought about his footsteps through time? This is a reminder of how rich Anderson's texts are. It is impossible, while reading, to note everything that might come to seem worthy of recollection later. Find a passage that describes a natural scene or that imparts a lot of information and try to summarize that passage. You will appreciate the details more for having summarized them and will also write something that might encourage others to read or reread.

The Boat Of A Million Years, Chapter V, returns us to familiar Andersonian territory. It begins:

"It is told in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason how Nornagest came to him when he was at Nidharos and abode some while in the king's hall..." (p. 108)

Anderson is at home among sagas, Olafs etc. It is as if Boat is to incorporate multiply diverse historical milieus. 

Is Nornagest another of Anderson's "immortals" that can be identified with a character to be found in earlier literature? 

The Story Of Aliyat

The Boat Of A Million Years, IV.

This chapter is a novel in content although not in length. It could easily have been expanded. In the unnumbered opening section, Aliyat makes her first appearance when she surreptitiously asks the caravan master, Nebozabad, for help. She reminds him that he has known her family all his life and he then recalls more than thirty years of experiences although the ensuing extended flashback is narrated from her point of view, not from his.

Sections I-14 are a flashback, recapitulating Aliyat's life until her flight from the city immediately before her appeal to Nebozabad. Sections 15-16 recount her successful escape with his help. Aliyat and her family had done their best to conceal or play down her unprecedented youthfulness and longevity. After she had been widowed, her son, now himself a grandfather, arranged for her second marriage to a merchant who subsequently adopted the religion of the Muslim conquerors. He took a second wife and concubines and arranged to catch his embarrassingly young older wife in adultery so that he could rid himself of her while keeping her property. A skilled survivor, Aliyat escapes. She will go out into the world and will eventually meet other immortals. Another building block has been added to the history of the Survivors. Maybe one of the gods goes with Aliyat?

Powers

The Boat Of A Million Years, IV, 12.

In Tadmor/Palmyra, the Arabs plan to turn the ancient temple of Bel into a fortress but Aliyat, nominally Christian and now Muslim, wonders:

"But were those Powers entirely dead? (p. 101)

She lists:

Bel of the storm;

Jaribol of the sun;

Aglibol of the moon;

Ashtoreth of begettings and births.

If, for the sake of argument or fiction, we grant the gods some measure of existence, then what becomes of them when they are no longer worshiped? Do they die or cease to exist or can they still be accessed? The Sandman knows. See Where Do Gods Go? Death adds in another volume of The Sandman that old gods linger for a long time in a dream country. This makes some sense. That is where they really are.

Aliyat

The Boat Of A Million Years, IV, Death In Palmyra, 1-16, pp. 70-107, 641 A.D.

This chapter covers forty years. First, there are Zarathustrans in Persia. Then:

"...afar in Makkah Muhammad ibn Abdallah saw visions, preached..." (7, p. 88)

The text summarizes how the Prophet flees, prevails, renames a city and dies:

"...as master of Arabia." (ibid.)

Khalifa Omar's troops capture Jerusalem, subjugate Syria and penetrate deep into Persia.

Against this historical background, Aliyat becomes a great-grandmother yet remains physically young and realizes that:

"...a new city lay ahead, and beyond it all the world and time.

"A woman who was ageless had one way, if none else, to live onward in freedom." (p. 107)

There is more than this to Aliyat's story but not tonight.

Hanno And Rufus

The Boat Of  Million Years, III, The Comrade.

Although the Roman Empire is unravelling, as in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, Hanno, now Lugo, lives comfortably in Burdigala/Bordeaux with his young wife, Cordelia, and their children. However, he hears of a man called Rufus who still looks young even after his wife has died of old age. Lugo rescues Rufus from a mob. The two trade stories. It seems that Rufus is a young immortal. Lugo is about twelve hundred years old. They must join forces. Therefore, they must travel to Britannia, where Lugo buried money several generations previously, and must not return. Lugo has already made financial provision for Cordelia in case he ever fails to return...

Hanno/Lugo must gather immortals and find out what they can do together. In this respect, he exactly parallels Jack Havig, the mutant time traveler in Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time. Although we do find some such parallels, these works differ considerably. Of necessity, many chapters of Boat are taken up with the handful of immortals finding each other. Each historical period is realized in detail, as in Anderson's Time Patrol series.

Eventually, Hanno's immortals and Havig's time travelers will make a big difference to the galaxy in their respective timelines.

Tu Chan And The Wind

The Boat Of A Million Years, II.

Tu Shan refers to:

"'Hsi Wang Mu, Mother of the West...'" (p. 45)

- and her peaches of immortality although it is clear that he himself does not take this mythological story seriously.

He, Tu Chan, is perfectly sensible and honest. He seeks the Tao and an explanation for his own unaging longevity. He has not yet learned to conceal that longevity although perhaps he is starting to realize that need by the end of this chapter. Having attracted Imperial attention, he decides to leave for parts unknown:

"'West into the mountains...'" (p. 45)

- like Lao Tzu before him. Moving west, he might meet others - Hanno is the only other immortal that we know, or at least suspect, so far.

As readers sensitized to the role of the wind in Poul Anderson's texts, we anticipate its arrival and are not disappointed. When the inspector and the subprefect walk down to meet Tu Shan:

"A wind had arisen. It boomed from the north, cooling the air, driving clouds before it whose shadows went like sickles across the land." (p.40)

Not a gentle wind. Booming is not a good sign, especially not when sending sickle-like shadows.

When Tu Shan has declined the invitation to become an Imperial adviser and the nobles as well as the audience of commoners have withdrawn:

"Tu Shan and his disciples stood alone by the well. The wind blustered through silence. Shadows came and went." (p. 45)

Again, this wind threatens, instead of confirming that all is well, which wind can also do. Indeed, Tu Shan says:

"'...it is well to be gone. This wind smells of trouble.'" (ibid.)

The brashest young disciple says that the master can tell and must often "'...have caught that scent in his many years.'" (ibid.)

Sure, but Tu Shan is assessing the whole situation, not just smelling the wind. He says:

"'The times are evil.'" (p. 46)

As often, the wind has the last word. Tu Shan continues:

"'We must seek a place apart, and the Tao.'

"They walked onward through the wind." (ibid.)

The reference to "disciples" does not mean that Tu Shan is misleading or exploiting anyone. Quite the contrary. Three young men have come to him and he has declined others. He repeatedly warns the three that he has no inspiration or secret. He is marked out only by his agelessness and he himself seeks to understand that. They can either listen or leave with his blessing.

The three Ways of China are conservative Confucianism, anarchic Taoism and imported Buddhism. I have read persuasive explanations that Zen is a Buddhist-Taoist synthesis.

A Taoist sage, asked how he would fare under Mao, replied, "Would it not be laughable if a lifelong follower of the Lord Lao were to fear change?" However, Taoists deal in cyclical seasonal changes, not in historical turning points incorporating violent social upheavals. But, in general, the sage was right not to fear change.

Masterless Wanderers

The Boat Of A Million Years, II.

The subprefect complains of "'Masterless wanderers...'" (p. 36) who:

do no useful work;

beg;

wheedle;

claim tremendous powers;

are said to have cured the sick, exorcised demons, raised the dead etc;

avail themselves of men's purses and women's bodies;

convince their victims that this is the Way;

then move elsewhere.

How many such charlatans have there been? 

This is an interesting perspective: society runs as it should only if everyone either has or is a "master"? Yes. That was the idea for a long time.

I knew a guy called Jim who claimed to have founded a new philosophy but it turned out to be a joke. 

The new philosophy: attachment to anything material prevents spiritual liberation.

The way to liberation: give all your property to Jim who will self-sacrificingly take all this bad karma on himself.

My doctrinal amendment: everyone's sacrifice will have been in vain unless Jim consumes all of the wealth himself. (He thought that maybe he needed my help with the doctrines. I replied that I would need my cut and he responded that this would be ok.)

Please do not take any of the above seriously!

"The Person Who Names Himself..."

The Boat Of A Million Years, II.

On its first reading, Boat... moves rather slowly, of necessity. A range of characters must be introduced in disparate milieus and must overcome a number of obstacles before they can come together. If two immortals are concealing their longevity, then how can they learn anything of each other? On later readings, an individual's name has significance as soon as it is introduced. Thus, the Chinese Imperial court has heard travelers' tales of a Taoist whose:

"'...virtue appears to have brought him great longevity... Actual immortality?'" (p. 36)

When the subprefect responds:

"'Oh... I understand. The person who names himself Tu Shan.'" (ibid.)

- this name means a very great deal if, as in the present case, we have just reread Chapter XIX first! We now want to be reminded of how Tu Shan was first introduced and also to reread whatever account he gives of himself to an Imperial inspector. Meanwhile, as always, we appreciate Poul Anderson's descriptions of nature:

"...leaves full of sunlight. Willows along irrigation canals..." (p. 33)

We are not hastening through the text and can pause to notice details. We glimpse the patience of the immortals...

Stonehenge And China

I have just reread Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, Chapter I, and posted about it but not mentioned Stonehenge because we have covered this before. See here. We hover on the brink of Chapter II which is set in China. The Chinese New Year takes a long time to start. We had a concert in the Grand Theatre last Sunday and there will be street performances, including the dragon, today. This will always be associated in our minds with Poul Anderson because of his character, Adzel.

There is no doubt about the setting of II, The Peaches of Forever, because, in its opening sentence, the Emperor sends an inspector from Ch'ang-an:

"To Yen Ting-kuo, subprefect of the Tumbling Brook district..." (p. 33)

- where it is early summer. Nowhere could be further removed from the northern climes where Pytheas and Hanno voyaged in Chapter I. Clearly from the start, Boat is a novel about mankind throughout the world and its history.

Farewell

The Boat Of A Million Years, I, 8.

Hanno, who says that he is "'...everywhere an alien...'" (p. 32) refuses Pytheas' invitation to stay and accept Massaliot citizenship. Pytheas exclaims:

"'What else is life but always bidding farewell.'" (ibid.)

There are always echoes between timelines:

"Well, I had been warned at the beginning that a Time Patrol agent's life became a series of farewells."

-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 1980, p. 351.

Pytheas is an acquaintance of an immortal. Carl Farness, newly recruited into the Patrol, has become a time traveler. And we read about them.

Now I really must say, if not "Farewell," then at least "Good night." Next time, we visit China.

River Of Mist

The Boat Of A Million Years, I, 4, pp. 20-22.

"Overhead curved the Galaxy, a river of mist across which winged the Swan. The Lyre hung silent. The Dragon coiled half-way around a pole strangely high in heaven." (p. 22)

And there is another description of the galaxy which is usually seen from space in Poul Anderson's works.

Pytheas, always wanting to learn more, says, with completely unconscious irony:

"'Our lives are a million years too short.'" (ibid.)

At the very end of James Blish's Cities In Flight, as this universe ends, a philosopher says that we did not have time to learn all that we wanted to know and John Amalfi accepts these words as the epitaph for man.

Kindred spirits across fictional timelines.

Barbarians And Aliens

The Boat Of A Million Years, I, 3, pp. 16-20.

Hanno has met enough barbarians to be able to guess what to expect from the newly encountered Pictones.

Nicholas van Rijn has met enough aliens to be able to deduce what is going on with the recently discovered Cainites.

Competent Andersonian heroes display common skills in different periods and different timelines.

That is my last thought for tonight and it is a valid one. Tomorrow we might see more of Hanno and of some other immortals. Or we might be doing something else, of course.

The Wikipedia Article

Someone has done good research on Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years for a Wikipedia article, e.g.:

Immortal physiology

[edit]

As their name implies, at a certain point Immortals stop outwardly aging, generally at about twenty-five years, though apparently among East Asians possibly a little later. When the Immortals' teeth are damaged, they regrow. Immortals receive no permanent scars and also never contract contagious illnesses, even during times of plague. They remain fertile for as long as they live and can rapidly heal broken bones or other serious wounds. If the Immortal men are circumcised, their foreskins will regenerate. Speculation on "recurrent intactness" among women is left unanswered, with the possibility of the female hymen likewise restoring itself having been brought up at one point during dialogue in the novel. Immortals can and in the course of the novel do die, as they are not capable of recovering from injuries such as a stab to the heart or decapitation. There is also discussion about whether long-term exposure to tobacco smoke might present the possibility of lung cancer developing, though the researcher who opens the possibility admits he has no data on the matter.

-copied from here.

The Ithagene And Hanno

The Boat Of A Million Years.

On Xenogaia, the Survivors, as foreigners, manage to prevent a war about reproductive rights among the trisexual Ithagene whose scaled, quadrupedal bodies are non-humanoid and sound fairly disgusting. Anderson is working on his aliens: no head with two eyes above a nose and a mouth here. I mention this because it seems to be the single exotic detail that I have not so far included from the climactic Chapter XIX. The Ithagene appear only in this single incident and nothing about them affects anything else in the novel so Poul Anderson could have written them any way he wanted. But he did come up with something reasonably alien. It remains to reread the historical chapters which I had just started to do last night when it hit me that our Hanno might be the historical Hanno. Always surprises.

Hanno lets slip to Pytheas that he knows that the heavens change over the centuries. Also, Hanno is a man of wide experience and with no kin. Readers slowly suspect his nature. We will follow Hanno and others through history at a leisurely pace.

The Unexpected

Every time a space traveler lands on a new planet or every time a time traveler arrives in a new future period, anything can happen. The author is free to create something entirely new on his blank sheet of paper or blank computer screen. In Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, the Survivors could have survived into an old-style sf future with hyperdrive and multiple alien species. They might even have survived into Anderson's Technic History. But this would have seemed inappropriate, especially since to us it would have been old. After that long historical build-up, we expected, and received, a more plausible-seeming extrapolation from then current knowledge. Slower than light interstellar travel and less easily found aliens fitted such a picture.

We would like to read a novel set in a rendezvous station or one set a million years later when the Survivors reconvene, having wandered the galaxy. But the latter was impossible. Few, if any, of the eight would survive for another million years. And they would surely be changed utterly. They might have spent time in environments that would change their physical appearance. They would even have trouble remembering anything from a million years previously. To remember anything, we have to think about it sometimes and how often would they be able to think about any particular experience out of so many?

A man who had changed psychologically and who never remembered or thought about having been Hanno would hardly be Hanno any more  - although spatiotemporal continuity does remain the criterion of personal identity.

Will lifespans be extended in future and, if so, for how long? People living then will find that their ancestors have speculated about it.

Stations

The Boat Of A Million Years.

Starfarers report their discoveries to rendezvous stations that they have established orbiting certain stars. Stations beam information to each other and to ships in transit. Also, ships visit the stations periodically because it is impossible to transmit data continuously to any ship travelling at any velocity. Information about Xenogaia transmitted by the Alloi to the nearest rendezvous has caused another race to decide to visit Tritos.

But these are organic space travelers. Usually, a civilization that wants to learn about life in other planetary systems but also to remain at home sends robot probes only about a light-century away for reasons of distance. However, they also send such probes further afield to:

other civilizations;

unusual stars;

star-generating nebulae;

supernovae;

black holes;

the galactic core.

In all but the first case, robot probes, having arrived at their goal, beam invitations and wait to be joined by other robots. At this point, Anderson makes a conceptual leap that is more fully explained only by reading Harvest Of Stars and Genesis. In the core civilizations, machine intelligence becomes superior and therefore displaces organic intelligence. Machines contemplate abstractions. Organisms usually become extinct but occasionally survive only to pursue enjoyment or "enlightenment" but not empirical knowledge. Why? Some machines and men can still seek and venture outward, surely?

In any case, the Survivor-Alloi alliance intends to buck this trend. 

Outward, with Poul Anderson's characters into the universe...

Long Lives And Interstellar Distances

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX.

Immortals are suited to slower than light interstellar travel. Immortality plus time dilation means that hundreds or thousands of light-years can be crossed provided that there is no need to return home soon. In fact, home changes so that it is no longer home. Starfarers become spatiotemporal exiles. The Allos whom Hanno and Yukiko call "Star Wing" has "...the patience of ancientness." (31, p. 576)

"These beings had left Pegasi fifteen thousand years ago; no individual lifetime of theirs was shorter than half of that. They knew of explorations that had been going on, in other directions, a hundred times as long." (ibid.)

So their shortest lifetime is 7500 years and their longest explorations so far have lasted for 1,500,000 years unless my maths are wrong. (I have to count zeros on paper.)

The (human) Survivors:

"...boost continuously between stars..." (p. 575)

- to maximize time dilation whereas the Alloi approach light speed but then go on free trajectory in order to save on anti-matter. Terrestrial astronomers never spot interstellar craft because they are few and because they expend energy only at the beginning nd end of a passage. Thus, Poul Anderson partly explains the lack of evidence for ETI's (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligences).

The Allos whom the Survivors call "Volant" thinks that human hastiness might fill a need left by other starfarers' patience. The Alloi and others have carefully explored a "'...tiny segment of the galaxy...'" (p. 576) whereas the Survivors might cross the whole galaxy and "'...weave it together...'" (ibid.) in less than a million years. The Alloi will accompany the Survivors to Phaeacia, the planet that the latter intend to colonize, in order to continue inter-species cooperation. This support in turn will ensure the success and survival of the colony.

Beginnings

The Boat Of A Million Years, I, Thule, 1, pp. 9-13. 

The opening and closing chapters are entitled Thule. The opening line:

"'To sail beyond the world -'" (p. 9)

- is spoken by Hanno to Pytheas.

The concluding chapter opens with Hanno exploring Jupiter. 

Hanno speaks to Pytheas of his namesake, Hanno the Navigator. See here. Our Hanno is Phoenician. The Navigator was a Carthaginian. Carthage was a Phoenician colony. Are the two Hannos the same? Earlier chapters are of greater interest when read in the light of the concluding chapter. We are only just beginning...

One Theme In Three Works

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy, post-organic intelligences becomes dominant in the Solar System and cease to look outward whereas organic human beings continue to strive and thrive elsewhere. In Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, several technological civilizations become postbiotic, absorbing their creators into their systems, as in Anderson's Genesis. At the end of Boat, the starfaring Alloi accompany the Survivors to the planet Phaecia in order to establish a colony that will maintain both organic intelligence and interstellar exploration. A questionable dichotomy is set up: postbiotics invariably cease to look outward? In Genesis, they continue to spread through this galaxy and beyond. Boat, like Harvest... and Genesis ends by addressing the relationship between organic and post-organic intelligences. All three works involve slower than light interstellar travel. Boat has several other organic intelligent species. Its premise of immortals is implausible.