Nicholas van Rijn offers his granddaughter, Coya Conyon, an impressive range of drinks, which we have already listed no less than three times, but she makes the same choice as I would have done, coffee. Tea is not mentioned.
I never tire of reading about the generational clash between van Rijn and Coya but we have probably said as much about that here as we can. I was on a different wavelength from my parents but not from my daughter.
I am drinking coffee at home and will have to dash through rain to get a bus to visit Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop in Morecambe because I stopped driving a car a while back but we have free pensioners' bus passes.
Van Rijn tells Coya that maybe Falkayn has:
"'...got somewhere a daughter old as you.'" (p. 345)
Recently I campaigned alongside a woman who, I realized, was five years younger than my granddaughter. Fiction and life run in parallel.
Captain Hirharouk, leaving van Rijn's cabin, signs off with:
"'Freelady Conyon, hail and fare you well.'" (ibid.)
6 comments:
Steve: quite probable. F. was a skirt-chaser from the beginning.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, but we never see mention of Falkayn having any illegitimate children. We know Dominic Flandry had at least two children like that: Dominic Hazeltine and Diana Crowfeather. Flandry also had some concern over how the universe was treating his children.
Ad astra! Sean
Flandry had a rather immature attitude towards women.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, but by the time Flandry met Kossara Vymezal, he was wising up to how inadequate that was.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah, I think it was due to Flandry not being raised in a regular family with 'present parents'. He retained the adolescent attitude that women were just fun and games well into adulthood, which is immature.
Also, I find unplanned pregnancies in a society with such advanced medicine as the Technic rather odd.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, Flandry was the illegitimate son of a minor aristocrat/space captain and opera singer who were not living together, being "present" to young Dominic. That said, they were not bad people and did their duty for him.
I am not surprised, re "unplanned" pregnancies. I fully human beings to remain all too human: careless, flawed, blunder prone, etc. I liked how Flandry's parents did not get him aborted!
I still think Aline Chang-Lei (in "Honorable Enemies") would have been ideal for him if Flandry had the sense to see that! But then he would never have begotten Diana Crowfeather, who played such a crucial role in THE GAME OF EMPIRE.
But this mind dizzying game of "what ifs" can go on forever!
Ad astra! Sean
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