In CS Lewis'
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, a Faun has a book entitled
Is Man A Myth? In Clifford Simak's
City, a Dog has written a book entitled
The Myth Of Man: a parallel worth recording. Fantastic fictions can show us ourselves from fantastic perspectives. In Poul Anderson's
The Rebel Worlds, the tripartite Didonians with their inherited but dwindling memories struggle to recall their brief encounter with human beings:
"(Blurred, two legs, faceless...no, had they beaks?)"
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 367-520 AT p. 369.
"Be not afraid of the strangers with single bodies... Rather pity that race, who are not beasts but can think, and thus know that they will never know oneness." (p. 520)
On Dido, we are becoming a myth - although they understand us.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One means of preserving memories/information by these tribodied Didonians would be if they could learn literacy. Since only the rukas have hands/fingers, that unit would have to do the writing or typing. But would all three units need to stay linked to have the intelligence needed for reading and writing? Special desks or tables would be required for handling books and writing materials if so. Stirling suggested in 2023 that Didonian entities might use dictation programs when using computers. Well, first they have to learn how to use computers and literacy.
As for the Didonian idea of "unity," no way! I prefer my single bodied "unit."
Ad astra! Sean
Note that a totally novel sight takes a while to 'sink in' and become natural.
(For example, a few years ago an Ethiopian saw some Europeans for the first time -- there hadn't been any visitors there for a long time. She burst in to tears, because she thought they were all infected with leprosy.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, sometimes I needed to loot at something new to me more than once before it "registered" on my mind.
Interesting how that Ethiopian woman reacted to seeing Europeans for the first time. A good example of how seeing something strange/new for the first time can be hard to mentally grasp.
Ad astra! Sean
Correction: First paragraph of my comment immediately above, "...I needed to look at...", not "loot."
Ggggggggrrrrrrrrr! Sean
Apparently the first audience of a cartoon film came out not knowing what they had seen.
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