Does an author express what life is really like? I am not going to look this up now - we can go into it later if we want to - but CS Lewis wrote that, before his conversion to Christianity, Christian authors seemed to him to communicate what life was like as we live it whereas secularist authors like Wells seemed tinny, especially by comparison. We can all ask this about the authors that we read. For what it is worth, I think that, when Lewis, Christian supernaturalist, wrote fiction, he really did convey what human experience is like, at least human experience before death. Some of his characters go a bit further...
I mention this here because I am concerned about whether Poul Anderson passes Lewis' test. I think that he does. We get inside Coya Conyon's head when she thinks about her life in the Solar Commonwealth and about her grandfather, Nicholas van Rijn, and his fellow merchants. We appreciate life in the Commonwealth when we are inside the head of James Ching as he navigates his way through the problems and pitfalls of his attempts to get into space with the Polesotechnic League.
But this is very subjective. What is life like and which authors convey it best?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Oddly enough, we never see inside Old Nick's head, except once, very briefly, in "Margin of Profit." Or, for that matter, Manuel Argos, in "The Star Plunderer."*
Ad astra! Sean
*The alternate title, "Collar of Iron," is much better!
Post a Comment