Music, Man And Superman

Star Prince Charlie, 7, Man and Superman.

"...the Hoka skirled forth a coronach." (p. 75)

"The warriors kept bringing him rich fruit and drink and then expected him to give an a capella concert." (p. 82)

What is George Bernard Shaw's Man And Superman about? How does it connect with Nietzsche's Superman? Why is Chapter 7 of Star Prince Charlie called Man and Superman? We, or at least I, read Star Prince Charlie without reflecting on the chapter titles. Having just reread this chapter, I still do not understand the relevance of its title. I am about to reread Chapter 13, Fahrenheit 451, so this time I will pay attention and try to discern the significance of the chapter title.

In Chapter 12, The Return of the Native, a young New Lemurian returns to his home village. The content of this chapter is serious and far removed from Hoka comedy.

A New Lemurian Village Shrine

Star Prince Charlie, 12.

The village halidom sounds like a Shinto shrine:

a roofed shrine inside a wooden fence covered by colorful, flowering vines;

the altar a granite block "...chiseled with symbols of sun, moon, stars, sea, land, wind, and life." (p. 127);

raked white gravel;

shrubs;

one stone slab, with a carved sign, for each family;

a part-time priest in a sky-blue robe holding a blossom and a smoking incense stick that perfumes the salty air;

Charlie's friend's grandfather addresses the ancestors;

the incense stick lights the blossom which then burns in the altar bowl;

the family kneels in prayer.

I think that standing with raised arms is a more appropriate posture for prayer and worship than kneeling.

Like Ancient Japan

Star Prince Charlie, 12.

Charlie visits a New Lemurian village:

"This place reminded him of ancient Japanese pictures." (p. 123)

Details include:

wooden walls and high curved roofs with delicately carved beam ends;

colorful clay pots catching rain;

sparse, airy, sunny and clean interiors;

docks smelling of tar, not of fish;

wives sweeping, spinning, weaving, sewing, cooking or preserving;

babies carried on backs;

children working on terraced fields rising to green forested mountains.

What better way to suggest alienness than to compare with ancient Japan? For previous blog references to Japan, see here.

Poul Anderson And Dornford Yates

What do Poul Anderson and Dornford Yates have in common? I hope to have shown some parallels. But, of course, the main connection, for the purposes of this blog, is simply that I read both authors and that passages written by one remind me of passages written by the other. All literature is one, if we can see it.

Yates' Jonathan Mansel, although not widely known, has been compared to:

John Buchan's Richard Hannay;
Sapper's Bulldog Drummond;
Ian Fleming's James Bond -

- and, of course, Bond is comparable to Anderson's Dominic Flandry.

But there is more here than just a few similar characters as I hope that several recent posts have demonstrated. We are now living in the post-aristocratic future that Yates and his characters dreaded. Poul Anderson's sf addresses a spectrum of futures, utopian, dystopian and ambiguous. Both authors address humanity and society.

Like A Dream

(i) Might there be realms so dissimilar that they scarcely impact on each other?

Yes. Mass-energy as against dark matter or dark energy.

(ii) Might we be able to pass between such realms?

Hardly. We are mass-energy and are already surrounded by the "dark" stuff but can barely detect it.

(iii) If we were able to pass between very dissimilar realms, might each seem unreal or dream-like when we were in the other?

"Nothing that happens in that nexus between the universes ever quite happens. When guests say goodbye and walk back out the door, it shall be like waking from a dream.
"Yet some dreams leave a measure of understanding."
-Poul Anderson, "Loser's Night" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 105-123 AT p. 107.

Thus, we think that the between-the-wars Winston Churchill leaves the Old Phoenix at the end of "Losers' Night" better equipped for what is to come.

Meanwhile, in terms of my rereading, not in terms of any other frame of reference, Dornford Yates' characters have escaped from his magical kingdom of Etchechuria:

"For a little they sat in silence. Then Pomfret started to his feet.
"'It's all been a dream,' he cried."
-Dornford Yates, The Stolen March (London, 1926), CHAPTER X, p. 293.

However, they have brought with them physical artifacts (which cannot be brought from the Old Phoenix), including a source of wealth that impacts on the mundane world:

"'Where is she now?'
"'Got out and married,' said Fluff. 'Lives in a hell of a place down Biarritz way.'"
-Dornford Yates, Adele And Co. (Stratus Books, Cornwall, 2001), 2, p. 31.

Readers of the thriller, Adele and Co., need not know how Eulalie became rich enough to buy "...a hell of a place..." Different realms...

Sensations And Ideas

Star Prince Charlie, 10-11.

During their escape, Charlie and Hector swim:

"The sea was cool. It tasted less salty than a terrestrial ocean. Sunlight skipped across waves." (10, p. 112)

Three sentences: three senses.

Next, they are back with the rebel fleet:

"Whitecaps marched before a fresh breeze which sang in tackle, filled out sails, and drove the fleet swiftly in the direction of sunrise. Everywhere Charlie looked, he saw vessels." (11, p. 113)

Two sentences: three senses but with sound replacing taste.

Dzenko thinks that three Feats have generated so much support that the remaining two are less important. Charlie opposes assassinations and argues that commoners should benefit from the revolution. He has started to have ideas about what should happen but has not yet gained a position that would enable him to implement his ideas.

Some Miscellaneous Connections

Star Prince Charlie.

What is there in common between Charles Stuart in Star Prince Charlie and Ivar Frederiksen in The Day Of Their Return?

In his Oxford tutor persona, the Hoka assumes the surname Smyth-Cholmondoley. A Dornford Yates character suggests that "colmondeley" means "beautiful" but I cannot find this word anywhere.

Poul Anderson has a Hotel Universe on the Moon.
Dornford Yates has a Hotel de l'Univers, Esteppemazan.
There is a Hotel de l'Univers, St Malo, also one in Paris.

As I say, miscellaneous points.

Interstellar Communication

The Inter-Being League uses subspace radio.

There are subtronics in "Sargasso of Lost Starships" but a transonic communicator in "The Star Plunderer" and the rest of the Technic History has modulated hyperpulses whereas there is a hyperbeam in For Love And Glory.

There is an "ansible" in Ursa Le Guin's Hainish future history.

Compare James Blish's Dirac transmitter and other interstellar communicators. Also, Communication. For more on his CirCon (circum-continuum) radio, see ASK Haertel.

The Taverners' Charter And Sagittarius

"...in The Old Phoenix, that inn outside all universes..."
-Poul Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), p. 106.

"The Taverners are as merciful as their charter, or whatever it was that was once granted them by some power unknown, allows them to be."
-Poul Anderson, "Losers' Night IN All One Universe, pp. 107-123 AT p. 108.

I think that the phrase, "...some power unknown...," definitely puts the Old Phoenix into the genre of fantasy.

"Then I saw [the Old Phoenix's] fancifully carved beam ends in silhouette against Sagittarius."
-ibid., p. 108.

Objects are often silhouetted against the Milky Way; here against one constellation.

"'You will go to the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union,' the machine had said."
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), CHAPTER IV, p. 23.

"'You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic History, Volume 3, pp. 195-215 AT p. 201.

Sagittarius is a constellation in the direction of the galactic center. In "The Chapter Ends,":

"'Civilization - the civilization of man and his non-human allies - has moved inward, toward the great star-clusters of Galactic center. This part of space means nothing to us any more; it's almost a desert. You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"
-ibid.

See also:

Sagittarius
Curdled Silver II
Connections Between The Psychotechnic History And "The Chapter Ends"
Orichalc And The Ocean Of Stars
"Home"
Curdled Silver
Fifty Thousand Years
Making Connections 

Scottish Struggles II

Star Prince Charlie, 8-9.

Hector refers to:

Flora Macdonald
Clan Ranald
the Hebrides
Benbecula
Culloden
Betsy Burke

History is never far away in informed sf.

If Charlie is to be an Andersonian, and presumably also a Dicksonian, hero, then he must take charge of his own destiny but he has not yet done this by the end of Chapter 9 (of 17). He is captured, really rescued, by the despot, Olaghi, but then counter-rescued by Hector, without any say in the matter. But he has begun to identify with the rebels although helping them will involve breaking the League non-interference law.

Olaghi moves quicker than the rebels expect because he and his agents have radios smuggled to him from within the League.

The League has "'...subspace radio...'" (8, p. 95) I think that this connects with the kind of FTL interstellar communication used in "Sargasso of Lost Starships" but am not about to look that up at this time of night.

Onward, Earthlings! (And non-Earthlings.)