The Blue Carbuncle

Near Christmas (scroll down), we remember and might reread:

"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens;

"The Blue Carbuncle" by Arthur Conan Doyle;

The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth;

"The Season of Forgiveness" by Poul Anderson -

- and I am currently reading about Christmas 2078, just sixty years from now, in Julian May's Magnificat. Also, Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys begins and ends with the Birthday of Mithras.

Because Poul Anderson fans should be interested in Sherlock Holmes, I will now recount that Aileen, our daughter, paid for Sheila and me to attend a dramatization, interrupted by Christmas carols, of "The Blue Carbuncle" in the Shire Hall court room of Lancaster Castle this evening. Watson stood in a witness box to narrate. While he read aloud The Times report of a court case, the witnesses entered the box and spoke.

When Holmes lets the culprit go, he says:

"'I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul.'"
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Blue Carbuncle" IN Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Two Complete Adventures (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1994), pp. 96-188 AT p. 187

- thus linking with the theme of "A Christmas Carol."

He also says:

"'Besides, it is the season of forgiveness.'" (ibid.)

Thus, Poul Anderson's Christmas story takes its title from a phrase in Doyle's.

(Another local note: in recent years, Nygel performed an abridged reading of "A Christmas Carol," accompanied by mulled wine, in a nearby library. This year, he is making Father Christmas phone calls to children and hopefully will review a Poul Anderson novel for this blog.)

The Everlasting Light

Arthur Conan Doyle's Christmas story, "The Blue Carbuncle," includes the phrase, "the season of forgiveness," which became the title of Poul Anderson's Christmas story (see combox here) which concludes:

"-the hopes and fears of all the years

"Are met in thee tonight."

-"The Season of Forgiveness," p. 139.

Sheila sings in a choir which today sang carols in the town centre. Aileen (daughter) and I sat opposite, drinking coffee. The choir concluded with "O little town of Bethlehem," which Aileen then said was her favourite carol. Fiction and life converged. 

Someone must be able to bring the Abrahamic and other theistic traditions together. By "bring together," I do not mean "doctrinally unify." Impossible and unnecessary. We can live with doctrinal differences in such matters. I mean "understand and acknowledge instead of misunderstand and condemn." There are different versions of stories. What I call a story, some call literally true. OK. That is another difference.

Years ago, we had a Service for Peace in Lancaster Catholic Cathedral with readings from the Veda, the Torah, the Koran and the Fourth Gospel. The Bishop said that it was good to hear the Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic. 

An Ivanhoan says that the Earthlings:

"'...should have special wisdom, now in the season of their Prince of Peace.'" (p. 137)

These Ivanhoans, unlike those in the previous story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel," have the Pagan attitude of accepting the reality of other gods.

"The everlasting light" (think of a menorah) is universal. In the Buddha Dharma, a man is enlightened. In the New Testament, the light becomes a man.

"From delusion, lead us to truth.

"From darkness, lead us to light..."

-my adaptation of the Gayatri Mantra.

Christmas

Maybe every fictional series should have a Christmas episode?

Sherlock Homes: "The Blue Carbuncle";
James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service;
Poul Anderson's Technic History: "The Season of Forgivenes";
Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy: Jack The Bodiless, 23.

In the latter two cases, extraterrestrials respond to this particular Terrestrial festival:

Ivanhoans realize that emissaries of the Polesotechnic League are not crassly mercantile because some, at least, have a sense of the sacred;

the Concilium of the Galactic Milieu celebrates Christmas when representatives of the Human Polity are being inaugurated into the Concilium.

How will we respond to alien festivals? (If aliens have festivals, of course.) One Technic History extraterrestrial, Axor, converts to Christianity and seeks evidence of an extraterrestrial Incarnation. Anderson leaves the question open even though Flandry gets funding for Axor's research. Axor is the kind of guy who will uncover interesting facts about the Ancients even if most of us disagree with the premise of his research. Evidence of Chereionite belief in an Incarnation and even of a festival like Christmas is not automatically evidence that there was a literal Incarnation. And I did not intend to engage in debate with Axor when I started to list Christmas episodes of our favorite series.

Seasonal Reflections

We have reread Conan Doyle's "The Blue Carbuncle" and Poul Anderson's "The Season of Forgiveness" and have appreciated how appropriate it was that Anderson adopted a phrase from the conclusion of the former as the title of the latter, in which Ivanhoan polytheists appreciate a Christian festival. The season inspires me to address such issues.

I was brought up in one of the Abrahamic prophetic traditions but now meditate in one of the Indian contemplative traditions. In a prophetic tradition, it is necessary to be neither polytheist nor atheist but monotheist whereas, in a contemplative tradition, it is possible to begin from any premise or world-view, to be polytheist, monotheist or atheist, and also to reinterpret beliefs. Many gods may be aspects of one god and the one reality need not be personal. It is possible either to advance from polytheism through monotheism to monism or to remain theistic. Contemplation is comprehensive and inclusive.

Happy Midwinter Festival and Christmas.

See Traditions.

Christmas

Maybe it is time to reread "The Blue Carbuncle" and "The Season of Forgiveness"? The latter adds substance to Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

Anderson had already introduced both Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, the latter on the planet Ivanhoe;

in "The Season of Forgiveness," he presents other characters on another continent on the same planet some time later;

next, he continues the intertwined stories of van Rijn and Falkayn.

An Ivanhoan, with his polytheist world view, thinks that the Terrestrials should have special wisdom during the season of their Prince of Peace.

Less posts at present due to Christmas preparations and to visiting Ketlan, son-in-law and technical assistant, who is back in hospital.

Happy Christmas

 

OK. Too busy to blog. My advice, read or reread:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

"The Blue Carbuncle" by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Shepherd by Frederik Forsyth

"The Season of Forgiveness" by Poul Anderson

Anderson's story is both a Christmas story in the Dickensian tradition and an instalment of Anderson's main future history series. The best of two worlds.

Christmas

Perhaps every fictional series should have a Christmas story - or a Jewish etc equivalent? I can cite three prominent examples:

in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (see here);
in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, "The Season of Forgiveness";
in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

There are other Christmas stories but are they parts of series?
There are other series but do they have Christmas stories?
Now blog readers can tell me what I have missed.