"...Lost Motherland." (p. 3) Implies a matriarchal society?
"...the northern horizon flickered with the campfires of the dead." (ibid.) Aurora?
"Wind lulled and ruffled my fur." (ibid.)
The wind is always with us and this narrator is not human.
"I am no saint or familiar of the Unseen..." (ibid.) What is the Unseen? Is it just believed in? Might it also be experienced? Would that experience be projected or objective?
"...the Watermother says I should..." (ibid.) Again with matriarchy?
The narrator recalls:
"...what happened long ago." (ibid.)
This might remind us of Anderson's Didonians recalling their contact with humanity.
"...I crouched down, not to be seen against the western stars and the Sky Flow." (p. 4)
Is the Sky Flow another description of the Milky Way that we have previously missed?
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Phrases like "Lost Motherland" do not necessarily refer to any kind of matriarchal culture. Its common enough in many human nations for people to refer to their countries like that without themselves being matriarchal.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean's right. Plenty of Europeans refer to their countries as "motherland" without being matriarchal.
In fact, all recorded human cultures have been patriarchal -- to differing degrees, of course.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I thought so, re "Motherland." I did notice, in your Black Chamber books, that many Germans often referred to their country as the "Fatherland."
I tried, but I simply don't recall reading of any human cultures that were matriarchal. Matriarchy doesn't seem to be natural for human beings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Germans make a distinction between the "Fatherland" -- Germany as a whole -- and the "heimat", the local homeland.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
So, for Horst von Duckler his "heimat" would be either the ancestral estate of his family or the Kingdom of Saxony, within the Reich.
Ad astra! Sean
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