However, in Poul Anderson's Technic History, we are with some characters against the Terran Empire and with others for it. The Day Of Their Return sympathetically presents both the government guy, Desai, and the rebel, Frederiksen, and we have to read to the end to find out what happens.
In his opening novel, Casino Royale, James Bond has an existential crisis and wonders which side is good and which is bad but, by the end, he has identified SMERSH as the bad guys and that defines the rest of the series although, when he has to prevent arms from getting to Castro:
"He hadn't wanted to do the job. If anything, his sympathies were with the rebels..."
-Ian Fleming, "A Quantum of Solace" IN Fleming, For Your Eyes Only (London, 1964), pp. 84-108 AT p. 85.
In Anderson's "The Pugilist," the first person narrator, a rebel, changes sides and does not, as we might have expected, change back again. The rebel leader is that fictional convention, a mysterious background figure who remains off-stage until the end - when our hero kills him. Then he reads:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident..." (p. 126)
- etc for the very first time and realizes that he has backed the wrong side but by then it is too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment