The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Historical , Mythical, Personal

The penultimate section of Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," headed 43, is science fiction because it is about time travellers in Hawaii before the Polynesians came. The concluding section, headed 374, is historical fiction because it is only about the death of the Goth, Ermanaric.

The opening section of the following instalment, "Star of the Sea," is set not only in a mythical past, before the beginnings, but also in an imagined earlier phase of Northern European mythology.

A goddess says:

"'Each autumn I will leave you and go back to my sea. But in spring I will come again. This shall be the year and every year henceforward.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT I, p. 469. (Roman numeral.)

This shall be and is the year. Myths explain experience: the Biblical Genesis and others.

The god replies in part:

"'I will await you when the sun turns north.'

"'I will come to you on the rainbow,' Niaerdh plighted.

"So it was. So it is."

-ibid.

Niaerdh is a reconstructed earlier form of the goddess' name. She explains the rainbow which is not yet either the bridge to Asgard or a promise by God.

The second section, headed 1 (Arabic numeral), is historical fiction. Germans besiege a Roman camp. The third section, headed 2, is science fiction, about the Time Patrol:

"In the closing decades of the twentieth century..." (p. 477)

I suppose that "...the closing decades..." are the last two? In any case, the following page soon informs us that Manse Everard had last been in Amsterdam in 1952, before joining the Patrol, and that that was thirty-four years ago. This gives scope for personal reminiscence:

"Had that summer really been so golden, or had he simply been young, unburdened with too much knowledge?" (p. 479)

"Star of the Sea" first appeared in this collection, originally entitled The Time Patrol and published in 1991. Thus, "Star of the Sea" was five years in the past of its publication date. In fact, Anderson wanted this story to be set before "The Year of the Ransom," published in 1988, in which Everard first meets Wanda Tamberly on 30 October 1986. Everard's affair with Janne Floris must begin and end in "Star of the Sea" so that it will be over before Everard meets Wanda.

Everard's reminiscence about his summer in Amsterdam reminds me at least of Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me. The second and third chapters of that novel are entitled "Dear Dead Days" and "Spring's Awakening." In Chapter III:

"In my memory of those days the sun is always shining..."

-Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me (London, 1980), p. 34.

The narrator describes a river scene. She adds that there must have been rain, noise and clouds on some days but that she cannot remember them:

"The weeks slipped by like the river, sparkling, luminous, full of enchantment."

-ibid.

This is the past of happy memories, not to be visited by time machine:

"The Midwest of [Everard's] boyhood, before he went off to war in 1942, was like a dream, a world forever lost, already one with Troy and Carthage and the innocence of the Inuit. He had learned better than to return."

-Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART FOUR, 1990 A. D., p. 178.

Many passages of the Time Patrol series are eminently quotable and we have had this one several times before.

Time Out Of Joint

A film fan I knew said, "Every film has a beginning, a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order." Sometimes, the opening chapter of a novel describes a climactic event, then the remaining narrative begins earlier and works its way back to that event, now contextualized. The chapters of Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza confusingly present a coherent story but not in chronological order so that, e.g., the viewpoint character alternates between adulthood and boyhood. Fortunately, a very good British TV dramatization enabled me to reread the novel with a firmer grasp of its fictional chronology.

Usually, time travel fiction presents events in the experiential order of the viewpoint character which, in the nature of the case, differs from their objective chronological order. Wells' Time Traveller is in the late nineteenth century, then in 802,701 A.D., then in the further future, then later on the same day in the nineteenth century.

Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" is presented mostly in the experiential order of the time traveller, Carl Farness, but also begins with a dramatic event, then works its way back to that event. In 1980, Carl Farness is recruited to the Time Patrol and interviewed by Manse Everard. Carl and Laurie Farness relocate from Pennsylvania, 1980, to New York in the 1930s. In 1932, Everard calls Carl for another interview in 1980. We see Carl in New York in 1933, 1934 and 1935. While based in New York in the 1930s, Carl has been time travelling to the Gothic period, 300-372.

In the opening passage, headed 372, Carl intervenes in that year. In the following passage, headed 1935, he returns home. Thereafter, events in the fourth and twentieth centuries are described from their beginnings in 300 and 1980, respectively. Eventually, a passage headed 366-372 ends with Carl's intervention in 372. The following passage, again headed 1935, begins the morning after Carl had returned home. Everard orders him back to the fourth century to complete the business that he had started then which he does in the following passage also headed 372.

Complicated but completely chronologically coherent.

Past And Present

Here, I listed several "past" years:

1935 (twice)

300

1890s (visited from 1980)

1980

337

1858

1934

372

43

However, when is the "present"? "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" first appeared in Time Patrolman which was published in October 1983. How much time elapsed between the beginning and completion of writing, then between that completion and publication? Maybe 1980 was the author's present when he wrote the passages set in that year which was Everard's base year while he was supervising Carl Farness. Time Patrolmen will not have our idea of a "present." Everard was recruited into the Patrol in 1954. Later in his career, he recruited Pummairam in Tyre in 950 B.C. Pum stays in his own time so his "present" remains the tenth century B.C.

Carl Farness visits the Moon in 2319. To the Danellians, 2319 and indeed the entire million years guarded by the Patrol are in the past.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Various Years

"The Sorrow of Odin the Goth."

1935

New York, autumn. Not many cars. Roast-chestnut carts. A large apartment overlooking Central Park where it is safe to stroll in the evening. A doorman who need not also be an armed guard.

300

The Vistula, winter, when almost no one travels and strangers are welcomed. The chief wants to see even a gangrel. 

1890s

Everard, based in New York, 1980, changes clothes because he knows of a good free lunch in a local saloon.

1980

New York, winter. Snow tumbling past the window makes Everard's apartment a white cave.

337

Goth infantry withstand Hun horse. Arrows darken the sky. Banners stream. Earth shakes. Weapons gleam. Bows twang. Sling-stones fly. Horns bray. Goths win. Their leader dies.

1858

Berlin, summer twilight on Unter den Linden. Fragrant trees, horse-drawn vehicles, tall hats, Prussian officers, a nightingale in a rose garden, a spacious house full of books and bric-a-brac where a maid in a black dress with white cap and apron serves coffee, cakes and cognac.

1934

New York, December, cold, dark, Salvation Army, Santa Clauses, Depression.

1935

New York, March, a walk in Central Park.

372

Goths, rain, wind, an end.

43

Hawaii before the Polynesians, quicksilver sea, the evening star above Mauna Kea, peace.

A time traveller goes back and forth. Poul Anderson goes way beyond Wells' original concept.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Goths, 300-372

Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465.

Historical figures:

Athanaric

Geberic

Ermanaric

Frithigern

Ulfilas

Constantine

Theodosius

Goths:

Visigoths

Ostrogoths

Ulfilas converted many Goths to Arianism. However, according to his Wikipedia article, Theodosius helped to establish mainstream Christianity. Visigoths settled in Gaul, then took over in Iberia, whereas the Ostrogoths took over Italy.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Tyre, 950 B.C.

Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 229-331.

Usu is a coastal city with docks, warehouses, flat-roofed adobe buildings, narrow twisting streets, vivid facades for temple or palace, battlemented walls and towers and an aqueduct running down from the Lebanon Mountains. The new city, Tyre/Sor ("Rocks"), located off the coast on an island made by filling between and around two skerries, has a north-south canal, jetties, breakwaters, multi-storey buildings, guardian walls and a large civic hall. In its Egyptian Harbour, Everard sees beggars, slaves, drinking sailors, a dancing girl, a sweetmeat vendor, a laden donkey, priests of Melqart and Osiris, red-haired Achaeans, a Hebrew warrior, a Philistine dignitary, a black man in leopard skin and ostrich plumes, Phoenician urchins, an Assyrian, an Anatolian and a blond Northern European. Stevedores unload a cargo from Ophir and Sinai. Anderson lists the sounds and smells, both pleasant and unpleasant. We are as close to being there as he can take us.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Miocene-Pliocene Transition

Poul Anderson, "Gibraltar Falls" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 113-128.

Animal species in the Iberian peninsula:

hovering hawks and vultures

zebra-striped ponies

primitive rhinoceros

ancestors of giraffe, resembling okapi

red-haired, large-tusked mastodon

peculiar elephants

sabretooths (also in the Oligocene)

early big cats

hyenas

ground apes, sometimes walking upright

six-foot high ant heaps

whistling marmots

The Atlantic has broken through the Gates of Hercules and will take a hundred-plus years to fill the Mediterranean basin which is ten thousand feet below sea level and has been a desert for a million and a half years. The inflow of 10,000 cubic miles per year makes the transition from Miocene to Pliocene.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: The Second Punic War

 

Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228 AT pp. 218-219.

In "The Past in The Time Patrol Series" posts, I have not always cited references. However, the relevant passages are easy to find in the early stories. The object of the exercise is to demonstrate how much historical knowledge the Time Patrol series imparts.

The Romans interfered with Carthaginian enterprise south of the Ebro. In 219-218 B.C., Hannibal Barca, governor of Carthaginian Spain, besieged and captured Sagantum, then marched across the Pyrenees, Gaul and the Alps, losing 70,000 infantry and 6000 horses en route. (Anderson does not tell us how many of Hannibal's 37 elephants were lost on this journey.) Despite these heavy losses, Hannibal, with his remaining 20,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry, defeated a superior Roman army at the Battle of Ticinus. The Roman commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio, and his son, Scipio Africanus the Elder, escaped, the son saving the father's life in the retreat. Guerrilla resistance by Quintus Fabius Maximus devastated Italy. Publius Cornelius Scipio weakened Hannibal's base in Spain. Hannibal was cut off in Italy and defeated by Scipio Africanus at Zama.

Hasdrubal Barca arriving in 211 and Hannibal burning Rome in 210 are in Time Patrol memories and records but not in our history.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: 1280 A.D.

Kublai Khan

Marco Polo

anti-Kublai revolutionary societies

Hojo family in Japan

Mongols unified only in theory

Russian princes

the Il-Khan Abaka in Baghdad

the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo

Slave Dynasty in Delhi

Pope Nicholas III

Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy

German Emperor Rudolph of Habsburg

French King Philip the Bold

English King Edward Longshanks

Dante Alighieri

Joannes Duns Scotus

Roger Bacon

Thomas the Rhymer

A Ming revolt will expel the Mongols. For Roger Bacon, read James Blish's Doctor Mirabilis. I admit to not knowing much about most of the items on this list. However, we now have the technology that Manse Everard encountered in the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene and thought could be expected by about 2000 A.D.:

"...screens which could draw on a huge library of recorded sight and sound for entertainment."

-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 2, p. 8.

- for entertainment and information.

Kaddish x 3

Works of fiction resonate with each other and with experience.

(i) In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Commander Max Abrams recites the Kaddish for young Ensign Dominic Flandry, missing in action. We read on, probably not reflecting much on the Kaddish.

(ii) In John Gardner's Maestro, two Mossad agents recite the Kaddish for an SIS agent shot dead by two rogue CIA agents. Gardner informs us:

"Yit'gadal v'yit kadash sh'me' raba. Amen.

"B'al'ma di v'ra chir'ute. Amen.

"Magnified and sanctified be His great name. Amen.

"Throughout the world which He has created according to His will. Amen."

-John Gardner, Maestro (London, 1993), Book Three, Seven, pp. 541-542.

(iii) The Kaddish was recited at the funeral of my son-in-law, Ketlan Ossowski, who created this blog.