Hexapodality

"The fact of hexapodality versus quadrupedality appears to be fairly trivial, a biological accident."
-Poul Anderson, Fire Time (St Albans, Herts, 1977), p. 83.

On Earth, quadrupeds became bipeds or two-legged, two-winged flyers. On Ishtar, hexapods became quadrupeds, four-winged, two-legged flyers or two-winged, four-legged flyers.

Someone said that, if we were quadrupeds, it would cost more in trousers. However, Anderson's intelligent quadrupeds on different planets are always, like mythical centaurs, hardy enough not to need clothes. In fact, it is difficult to imagine appropriate garments. Larry Niven's tripedal Puppeteers also go naked.

Anderson's Ishtarians can trot, gallop, sleep out of doors and live off the land or their own bodily foliage while traveling long distances. Porters are strong, messengers are fast and ranchers pull their own wagons. In fact, why are human beings so helpless in their natural environment? We make up for this by cooperation and intelligence and have constructed vast artificial environments instead.

I am getting back into rereading Fire Time but am also just about to go out to a meeting so will be back online later.

Brief Posts

Why do I not read a novel from cover to cover, then post a lengthy review of it? I find it easier, more enjoyable and I think more comprehensive to post as I read. Posts can be any length, can focus on any aspect of a text, even a single comma, and can follow interesting digressions wherever they lead. In the case of SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, we have considered:

vocabulary, grammar and literary style;
parallels with Kipling;
comparisons with Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and Technic History;
social complexities;
issues of artificial intelligence, war and racism;
Stirling's clever incorporation of real people into his alternative history;
Indian contributions to civilization, including food and religion;
Bradshaw's Guides;
the concluding quotation from a poem by James Elroy Flecker;
what my family was doing at the same time in Lancaster.

Thus, I feel that regular posting covers details that might otherwise remain unnoticed and also captures the flow of life in a way that less frequent, more carefully constructed posts would miss. Right now, birds are singing and I need some breakfast. I have other things to do today so there might be less posts.

"Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea..."

I have been riveted by SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003). American correspondent, Sean M Brooks, suggested that a Poul Anderson fan should read some Stirling. Having now read this one novel, I am bound to agree with him. So what next? For me, more Stirling and more rereading of Anderson but also more reading and rereading of other works not connected to this blog: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is dying for me to get back to her!

The Peshawar Lancers has a conventional happy ending with three marriages and the heroes returning home:

"The lord of Rexin laughed softly, shook his head, and looked up through the fresh green leaves of the chinar trees and the exploding white and pink flowers of the orchards, up toward the manor and its gardens." (p. 458)

The text concludes with a characteristically evocative quotation from James Elroy Flecker, in this case from his "Ishak's Song." (This is a double link to Neil Gaiman because Gaiman also quotes Flecker and because Ishak is the Court Poet of Haroun al Raschid, who is the central character of Gaiman's Ramadan.)

I do not begrudge Stirling's characters their happy ending and do not wish any more adventures on them but I do want to know more about their history: the international situation and the threat of a second Fall.

King Charles III

SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

If we have looked ahead to the admirably compact Appendices, then the list of King-Emperors has already alerted us that Charles III will succeed his father, John II, in the year of the action of the novel, 2025. (Post-Imperial Britain might also have a King Charles III by 2025.)

Kingdoms were begun in military conflict but, unusually, Charles III of the Angrezi Raj must begin his reign in combat, with his father murdered. Fortunately, he is fully competent, delegating tactical command to Captain Athelstane King while also issuing orders about contacting search parties. Although I prefer a society without class distinctions, it is good to read of a monarch who is primarily aware not of royal rights but of duties and responsibilities, rajadharma (p. 432), and who is also capable of fulfilling them. Athelstane King is the hero of the novel but we realize that the new King is another.

Curry And Naan

Reading and posting about SM Stirling's Angrezi Raj in his The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003) has been and still is a transcendent experience. Alternative universes meet in the imagination if not as yet in reality.

Hero and villain, Athelstane King and Count Ignatieff, fight an epic sword battle on top of a sinking dirigible. Will the narrative become anti-climactic after the villain's death? Or can he somehow rise again?

The dirigible is damaged, unmaneuverable and sinking with its crew murdered but that does not mean that the kitchen is not working!

"Servants came in, bearing food - the kitchens were still working, thank the merciful Gods. Cassandra started wolfing down a fiery chicken Marsala, scooping up sauce and rice with pieces of naan; nobody was standing on ceremony now." (p. 432)

I have recently mentioned Indian food and it is good to see it appreciated here. Our family is vegetarian except for Sheila who does eat chicken dishes. Lassi, especially mango lassi, should be drunk after, not before or during, the meal because it fills you up. I like aloo (potato) dishes (see image).

India has given us:

"Arabic" numerals with the decimal point;
Buddhism;
yoga;
non-violence;
curry;
sitar music;
two long epics - Mahabharata and Ramayana;
rich and colorful mythology.

Krishna

"King sent a brief prayer of thankfulness to Krishna - it seemed appropriate, since the merciful God had appeared to Arjuna and counseled him on a warrior's duty. Of course, he'd also told the noble bowman that he must fight and kill only from duty, without personal attachment."
-SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

Krishna taught Arjuna karma yoga, non-attached action in the secular world, as against ascetic withdrawal from action. To engage even in military conflict may be the lesser evil but a karma yogi performs any necessary task mindfully, thus more efficiently, free from, undistracted by, mental attachments like desire for success or fear of failure. In the battle, he is untouched by it.

The Bhagavad Gita presents bhakti (devotional) yoga, mantra yoga, a cosmic vision and Krishna as a personal deity but I think that karma yoga is its most important and distinctive message. A former Krishna devotee told me that he visited the battlefield of Kurukshetra where there is a life size sculpture of Krishna and Arjuna on their chariot which is inscribed with shlokas (Gita verses) and a temple has been built at the site of the death of each of the epic heroes.

My religious philosophy is built on meditation (the Buddha) and karma yoga (Krishna).

Addendum: Theistic karma yogis offer their actions to God. Laborare est orare. For Buddhists, non-attached action is working meditation.

An Indian Meal And A Walk In Morecambe

Occasionally, I try to persuade page viewers that I do something other than post on Poul Anderson Appreciation. Yesterday evening, appropriately after posting about SM Stirling's Angrezi Raj in his The Peshawar Lancers, I accompanied my wife (Sheila), daughter and granddaughter to Bombay Balti, Lancaster (see image), for an Indian meal, although a Birmingham Indian restaurant owner claims that "Balti" recipes have been invented to suit the British taste and that he alone serves authentic Indian meals (see here).

The meal out was to celebrate Sheila's swift recovery from her hip operation, which also enabled us to walk along Morecambe Promenade (see image) in good weather this afternoon. Right now, I am trying to get back into rereading Stieg Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon

Tattoo, having enjoyed Episode One of the film series which I received at Christmas (see here). The end of The Peshawar Lancers looms near and it is always a wrench to re-emerge from a fictional universe after complete immersion in it. I have found this with Anderson's Technic History and also with the Andersons' Ys Tetralogy.

However, no doubt posting will continue on some other Andersonian or Anderson-related texts. Having just passed midnight, I notice that there were 205 page views yesterday as against 177 the day before.

I have created a circular sequence of links on the blog although it is unlikely that any page viewer will find his/her way around the entire sequence.

"Coolies"

SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

Is it wrong to print the term "'...stinking coolies...'" (p. 400)? Yes, if the phrase is printed in a propaganda leaflet denigrating foreign workers or immigrants. No, if the phrase is enclosed in inverted commas and attributed to a character in a novel. In the latter case, instead of complaining to the publisher, we merely note that this speaker is racist.

Nevertheless, it was an unexpected pleasure when Princess Sita informed the offending airship captain that he would "'...never, ever, refer to Imperial subjects as "stinking coolies" again.'" (p. 401) Even better, Sita's father, King-Emperor John II, when informed, remarked, "'Damn the man, and may he be reborn as a labor-tenant on his own estate...'" (p. 404)

However, when his heir points out that, "'Those chickens are going to come home to roost, someday, sir,'" John replies, "'With luck, not in my time or yours...'" (ibid.)

The chickens have already come home to roost. There has been at least one "'...suppression of a native uprising...'" (p. 402), in which the offensive Captain Pienaar played a heroic role. John continues:

"'...more often than not, if you leave a problem alone long enough, it solves itself - something governments are loath to learn.'" (p. 404)

The world is full of problems that show no sign of solving themselves! - although they might look fairly remote from the perspective of the Lion Throne.

The National Anthem

SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

"God save our gracious Queen..."
"Gods save our Padishah -" (p. 396)

These are the opening lines of the British national anthem in alternative timelines. The addition of a single letter shows how much the Angrezi have been assimilated by their Raj.

I live on Blades St which is often written "Blade St" because it is impossible to pronounce both "s" 's. At a nearby Community Orchard, there is an annual chant of "Pray God send us a thumping good crop" or "Pray gods send us a thumping good crop." Monotheists and polytheists can stand side by side and not discern each other's beliefs. (Inquisitors unwelcome, of course.)

The full first stanza in Stirling's version is:

"Gods save our Padishah -
"Dillishvaro wa Jagadishvaro wa
"From Delhi rule Universal Lord
"Mulk-i-Padishah, hukum-i-King-Emperor -" (pp. 396-397)

I do not understand the second and fourth lines and cannot fit them into the rhythm? However, see here.

Religious Diversity II

SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

My Gods! By Agni and Indra! When I posted about "Religious Diversity," I did not know the half of it. Buddhists are at last mentioned on p. 384 although this is a historical reference because, of course, the Buddha Dharma had "...faded from..." the land of its origin.

However, Stirling imagines some strange developments in his Angrezi Raj. (Poul Anderson has an alternative mythology in a potential timeline of the Time Patrol universe.) First, there is a temple to a goddess who was invented as a fictional deity in "...a kinematograph play..." (p. 358). A French Catholic is astounded that, "'...people of a veracity believe in this goddess?'" (p. 359) Alan Moore said in conversation that "Religions are higher fictions." One of Poul and Karen Anderson's Ysans says that his people, unlike Christians, do not believe that their myths are literally true. A man showing me around the Hindu Temple in Preston paused before Ganesh and said, "There are different versions of the story..."

Next, Stirling's Angrezi interact with Hinduism:

Princess Sita tells the Frenchman Henri that Anglo-Indian religion is flexible;

sahibs frequently invoke Indian deities or the Ten Thousand Faces of God;

Sita accepts the Established Church but also makes offerings to Saraswati, wife of Brahma;

the Biblical God is too active post-Creation to be identified with Brahma but could be Vishnu or Shiva;

there is theological controversy as to whether Christ is Vishnu's son or one of His incarnations.

Personal observations:

we can appreciate the Mahabharata and the Ramayana as we appreciate the Iliad and the Odyssey;

however, Indian meditation and philosophy transcend stories and rituals;

I suggest that the Christian Trinity corresponds not to the Hindu Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva (Creator, Preserver, Destroyer) but to the threefold characterization of Brahman as Existence-Knowledge-Joy or Being-Awareness-Bliss;

this characterization describes a transcendent human experience even if not also a transcendent metaphysical reality.

Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus!