Ellis Nordberg

(A sunset on a Biblical cover: reflection on endings.)

For previous posts on this Bible-believing character, see Ellis (scroll down) and Nordberg.

The Devil's Game, ELLIS NORDBERG, pp. 191-200.

James Blish - and I agree with him - praised CS Lewis' ability to show us his characters' innermost self-deceptions. Just one example:

"If the idea, 'Feverstone will think all the more of you for showing your teeth,' had occurred to [Mark] in so many words, he would probably have rejected it as servile; but it didn't."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 2, p. 379.

This servile idea does not even occur to Mark but he acts on it, nevertheless! Some of his motives are hidden even from himself.

How about Poul Anderson's Nordberg? Having murdered one of his competitors in the high-stakes game of Follow the Leader and considered offing another, he thinks about two others:

"...I'll have to be almighty careful. I wouldn't put murder past them." (p. 195)

Good Lord! (To appropriate Nordberg's Biblical terminology.)

He is a tasteless man, regarding Shakespeare, of all people, as an overrated windbag. (p. 192)

Christened Elias, he has had to waste hours explaining that he is not a Jew. (p. 198) Tough call, Nordberg.

Having murdered a Communist, he gloats that the man is now in hell. (p. 194)

Can we find anything whatsoever good to say about this guy?

Where should the murdered Orestes and his murderer, Ellis, go in a hypothetical hereafter? If I had any say in the design of a hereafter, then they would both go somewhere where they would be able to reflect and learn - but I am not Ellis' indignant, fiercely angry, jealous LORD. (p. 191)

Seven

The Devil's Game. See here.

Sunderland Haverner has gathered seven people who will compete for one million dollars, tax free. At the end of one paragraph:

"Outside, a mockingbird fluted."
-INTERVAL ONE, p. 29.

Nature mocks human ambitions.

Anderson must telegramically convey the several characters' diverse responses at various stages in the narrative. For example, when Cruz challenges Haverner (see the above link):

"Gayle's breath hissed. Larry barely smiled. Byron took some wine, looking embarrassed. Ellis and Julia flickered glances back and forth from host to guest. Matt managed to say, 'I know your kind, Cruz -...'" (p. 28)

Five responses:

shock/tension;
amusement;
embarrassment;
interest/curiosity;
aggression.

When Julia reveals that she needs the money for her young daughter's medical bills:

"Byron registered distress. Larry gnawed his lip. Matt flushed with a somehow offended expression. Ellis frowned. The scowl on Orestes might have been aimed at a personal enemy." (p. 31)

Gayle offers to help if she wins whereas Ellis is hostile to what he sees as Julia's "'Sympathy pitch...'" (p. 26).

Will Anderson be able to keep juggling so many responses throughout the novel? His job as a writer will become easier if some of the characters are killed during the competition...

Byron Shaddock: Some Miscellaneous Notes

The Devil's Game.

After a whole day at the Music Festival, there is only time for a few notes on Byron Shaddock. His challenge of climbing down and back up a cliff eliminates Gayle Thayer, then his challenge of climbing up a ceiba, and back down in the dark, eliminates Matt Flagler, who is unable even to start the climb.

Shaddock categorizes his companions:

Orestes, spider;
Larry, bear;
Julia, woman;
Matt, ape;
Ellis, machine;
Gayle, sheep;
Anselmo, wolfhound, becoming jaguar when he moves to rescue Gayle;
Shaddock himself, man.

Ellis says that his religion forbids the use of the anti-rabies tablets that Byron has brought. Why?

Byron guesses that Matt suffers from acrophobia. During INTERVAL FIVE between challenges, he, Byron, captures a tarpon while Larry reads Eothen.

Like I said, miscellaneous, but I am trying to keep my hand in.

The Next Frontier: An Anticipation

The Devil's Game, INTERVAL ONE, p. 34.

Ellis describes oceanography as the coming thing and the next frontier. He does not mention astronautics. Instead, he lists:

oil
metals
tide motors
scientific fisheries
food
plastics from plankton
seaweed
a million invested to become a billion

Thus, he anticipates Maury Station, a sea station and Delfinburg.

When Larry says that the phytoplankton supplying half of Earth's oxygen are becoming contaminated and that oil slicks are bad whereas whales and elbow room are good, Ellis replies that eco-freaks lack imagination. Really? A lot like that is being said now.

A Gripping Psychological Novel

I had misunderstood the rules of The Devil's Game (New York, 1980). Each contestant is not limited to presenting only a single challenge. S/he can present any number of different challenges between sunrise and sunset of his/her day although, in fact, the first two contenders, Larry Rance and Gayle Thayer, do each present only one. Neither of their challenges has eliminated any of the seven.

Rance could have eliminated three contestants but decided against it. Thayer fails her own challenge, to sit entirely still all day, but, as the one who brought the challenge, she can end it at any time. Thayer's chapter confirms that, so far, each contestant narrates his/her chapter in the present tense. Sitting still, she thinks a lot, thus informing the reader about her life.

During Interval Three, Haverner presents an excellently accurate character dissection of the contestant, Ellis Nordberg, ending:

"'I could go on, but no need. Either you do or you do not have a capacity for self-examination.'" (p. 88)

Samael appears in different ways. The first time, Haverner saw his own reflection moving independently and addressing him. During Interval Four, words appear on a screen. When the words refuse to provide requested information, Haverner speculates:

"'...you could not exist, Samael, except in a hidden part of my own brain, and be unwilling to admit it...'" (p. 112)

Samael replies that, if the words on the screen come from outside Haverner, then they are being recorded and can be played back or printed out. Haverner erases whatever was on the disc. Bad move, Haverner. Don't you want to know?

Orestes Cruz

The Devil's Game, ORESTES CRUZ, pp. 145-155.

He thinks:

"Today this grisly thing will end." (p. 145)

In view of how this chapter will end for Orestes himself, this sentence is retroactively ironic.

He wonders what happened between Julia and Byron. We know. He thinks that Matt, who has been eliminated from the contest, might be in partnership with one of the others. He is. Orestes wrongly dismisses the idea that Matt and Gayle are in collusion.

He categorizes those of the other characters whom he hates:

Haverner, shark;
Nordberg, hagfish;
Flagler, "...poisonous drifting Portuguese man-of-war." (ibid.) (Dangerous, man!)

The others are likeable but pathetic.

Flagler has tried "...to nigger..." (ibid.) Cruz, who is black. What does "nigger" mean as a verb?

Orestes also quotes Latin:

"How does the Latin go? Sol Invictus!" (p. 146)

He thinks that Julia has a Scythian head over a Grecian body. He quotes Enrico Brunner. (?)

Ellis emphatically tells Matt and Gayle to leave the beach and do what seems best. Orestes' challenge is that those still in the contest must remain naked in the sun on the beach all day. His skin color is an advantage against the sun but not against a bullet.

See POV And Death.

Sensations And Anticipations

See Is Samael Prescient?

Haverner knew that Julia's challenge was going to be an LSD trip. Either Haverner told Samael this or the latter would have been able to overhear, observe etc. Thus, it would not have been difficult to anticipate the outcome.

Preparing for the trip, Julia has eaten early, exercised and kept her senses wide open. See Julia Petrie's Five Senses. Returning from her morning walk, she continues to be assaulted by sensations:

shadowy veranda;
glowing windows;
coffee and bacon smells;
white table linen;
silver tableware;
"...startling orange of an egg yolk." (p. 233)

By the rules that Poul Anderson has established for this novel, we will read a first person, present tense account of Julia's trip but will merely observe the effects on Ellis. However, we can guarantee him a bad trip.

(I walked to Morecambe instead of driving, lunched with a former work colleague and visited Andrea who showed me Star Trek Continues. It really is possible to learn something new every day. See Tech Or Trek and Explorers And Engineers.)

How The Brain Works II

See How The Brain Works.

A follow up point:

Lisbeth has just solved Fermat's Theorem but forgets the proof after she has been shot in the head.

"'Isn't that part of the brain associated with numbers and mathematical ability?' Jonasson said.
"Ellis shrugged. 'Mumbo jumbo. I have no idea what these particular gray cells are for.'" (p. 13)

Not quite "mumbo jumbo" if an empirical connection has been established between one part of the brain and one set of mental abilities. But it is only an empirical connection and might not hold in all cases. I have also read that brains can be versatile enough to move their functions around, e.g., in response to physical damage. And there is no necessary connection between gray cells and understanding a theorem. Might there be organisms that have developed central nervous systems and even complex signals resembling language but that have not made that qualitative leap from unconsciousness to consciousness, kind of elaborate mobile vegetables?

Two Contemporay Novels

Poul Anderson's first contemporary mystery novel, Perish By The Sword, has just (26 Sept) arrived by post but meanwhile I had started to reread his contemporary fantasy novel, or contemporary novel with a fantasy element, The Devil's Game (New York, 1980).

In ...Game, an old, rich guy, Sunderland Haverner, has had a life long deal either with a literal demon or with a demon-like being that goes by the name of Samael. (In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Lucifer's name before he fell.)

Haverner, inspired by his demon, induces seven disparate characters, all badly needing money, to play Follow the Leader, the winner or winners to receive one million dollars, tax free thanks to an ingenious legal loophole. The reader has to keep track of eight major human characters plus the supporting cast of Haverner's servants.

As far as I remember, from having read the novel only once when bought, the seven interact without any demonic influence so that the central narrative is not fantasy. Perhaps the Haverner-Samael dialogues are the framing device? The game is designed to draw out the worst from its contestants so that some unpleasant passages are to be expected. The chapters are unnumbered but not innominate:

SAMAEL
THE ISLAND
INTRODUCTIONS
INTERVAL ONE
SUNDERLAND HAVERNER
INTERVAL TWO
LARRY RANCE
INTERVAL THREE
GAYLE THAYER
INTERVAL FOUR
BYRON SHADDOCK
INTERVAL FIVE
ORESTES CRUZ
INTERVAL SIX PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
ELLIS NORDBERG
INTERVAL SEVEN PART ONE
MATTHEW FLAGLER
INTERVAL SEVEN PART TWO
JULIA PETRIE
FAREWELLS
SUNDERLAND HAVERNER

This structure is unusually elaborate, with a three-part Interval Six and the two parts of Interval Seven separated by the sixth of the seven contestants. As expected, Samael and Haverner bracket the contestants. 

Cruz And Norberg

Poul Anderson displays the innermost thoughts of the seven contestants in The Devil's Game (New York, 1980), including a fascinating contrast between Orestes Cruz and Ellis Nordberg.

The murdered Communist, Cruz, is a far more sympathetic character than his Christian murderer, Nordberg. Anderson, a political conservative, shows us why some men have become Communists. He often wrote with sympathetic understanding of religion in general and Christianity in particular but also understood the inhumane mindsets of some Christian traditions.

Some of Cruz's teeth rotted in childhood; others were "'...knocked out in prison...'" (p. 33)

"'...my brothers are being shot, flogged, clubbed in the testicles, left starving among lice and cockroaches...I am going to spend the money on guns and propaganda and liaison with my brothers in Cuba, Africa, around the world.'" (ibid.)

We each make our own response to Cruz's speech but it is to Anderson's credit that he gives us that speech and then later writes Nordberg's self-serving prayers:

"'You want me to prosper, for an example of your mercy and to become able to do your work in this world.'" (p. 191)

Well, Nordberg wants Nordberg to prosper so, of course, the Lord must want this as well.

Of Haverner, who offers the prize of a million dollars, Nordberg thinks:

"I gather he's not a Christian. Nevertheless the Lord has seen fit to make him mighty upon the earth, even as Cyrus was made mighty to free Israel, as Augustus was so there'd be a Roman peace wherein the words of our Saviour could be heard. My Cyrus, my Augustus." (p. 194)

Thus, Nordberg modestly compares himself both to Israel and to the Savior! I find that first sentence irritating. Everyone must first be classified as to whether they are "a Christian" or "not a Christian." That makes about as much sense as classifying every science fiction writer as either "Poul Anderson" or "not Poul Anderson."

(For Cyrus, see Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Brave To Be A King"; for Augustus, see Neil Gaiman's Sandman story, "August.")

Nordberg wonders how someone:

"(...can be religious and not rejoice that we're afflicted with one less godless Communist.)" (p. 195)

The subject of this wonderment is one of the servants whom Cruz had gone out of his way to befriend.

Of Cruz, he thinks:

"(...I hope you enjoy yourself, Orestes Cruz, looking up from hell)." (p. 194)

I have encountered this in some Evangelicals, genuine gloating at the supposed future damnation of their opponents. I was indoctrinated in an admittedly different Christian tradition where we were told that we must "judge not." We do not know how anyone else stood with God and cannot say where they are in the hereafter.

According to Nordberg, an adulteress is:

"That whore, that slut, that bitch, that tramp, that abomination in the sight of the Lord." (p. 200)

No, man, she is just an adulteress. However, she, another of the contestants, shows every sign of being as manipulative and self-seeking as Nordberg himself. Hence, his antipathy towards her. Bizarrely, he even imagines forcing sex on her as a way of bringing down her pride and showing her that she "...is less than dust in the sight of the Lord." (p. 197) And one reason for deciding against this is that he might suffer the embarrassment of impotence. (Anderson has created an extraordinarily complicated character.)

That "It is a sin" is another reason against. (ibid.) But not a big reason. As I understand this version of Christianity, a man, once saved, cannot be lost. He will, of course, be punished by being made to feel bad about his "sins" but that is as far as it goes.

I could write even more about Nordberg's mental contortions but that is plenty. By contrast, the "godless" Cruz is refreshingly straightforward and honest.

Manse And Mansel

(Mansel and Chandos hold up Punter and Ellis.)

I found a Poul Anderson character in a Dornford Yates' novel - or seemed to have. Mansel's name was at the end of a line with its last letter missing. I am probably the only person ever to read Blind Corner and to think of Time Patrol. Manson ("Manse") Everard and Jonathan ("Jonah") Mansel will never meet, except in the imaginations of their readers, and they inhabit such different conceptual universes that we can only marvel at human diversity. In fact, it is a privilege to be able to enter into the world-views of authors from such different social milieus. Yates' heroes are always accompanied by their man servants so that a band of three men automatically becomes six - and the servants are good with cars and guns. Manse Everard lives in a New York apartment. I live on a terrace street where, a hundred years ago, the occupants would have had domestic servants whereas now the houses are occupied either by Asian families or by University students.

Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.

Weather

The Devil's Game, INTERVAL FOUR, pp. 108-123.

The concluding passage of this chapter is punctuated by weather. When two Follow the Leader contestants collude:

"Through closed windows could be seen how the clouds thickened. Occasional lightning winked. The trees sounded like surf." (p. 117)

A storm builds outside while conflicts build inside. The sheltering forest sounds like that potentially more hostile element, the sea.

As the conversation proceeds:

"With the clouds, twilight was gathering in the room. Matt's cigarette end pulsed crimson." (p. 119)

Twilight gathers and Matt's cigarette shines red just as Ellis expresses interest in Matt's liking for guns. (I remember, from a previous reading, that one contestant will be shot dead.)

Later, the storm breaks. Night falls, followed by hot heavy raindrops. Wind howls, rain comes solid, then roars. Wind brawls, hoots and wails. The omniscient narrator compares the cold to the "...absolute zero of empty space..." (p. 121) The house creaks. The veranda quivers. Byron and Julia find the weather awesome. It shows how little they are. Byron says, "'...damn the cliches.'" (p. 121) But this cliche is real. When Julia approaches Byron, rain flies on the wind and drums. When he rejects her, wind and rain ramp.

(Read it and see what I mean.)

Reprehensible Characters

Poul Anderson, like CS Lewis, takes us right inside the heads of characters who are dishonest and self-seeking.

The Gaean usurper of Skyholm:

"I, having lived through war, am a man of peace. But, if I threaten war, and am defied, I shall have to wage it. Why? How did all this happen? What has gone wrong?

"He squared his shoulders. Pain and death were among the workings of the Life Force, which he served. Let him never forget."

-Orion Shall Rise, CHAPTER TWENTY, p. 347. 

 

This is a self-proclaimed man of peace who has seized power by force. An abstract appeal to "the Life Force" could be used to sanctify the infliction of any pain or death. A man who claims that he has killed rightly or justly must present a much more specific defense of his action.

 

I have posted extensively about the villain of Anderson's The Avatar, Ira Quick.

 

Lewis precisely captures the mental processes of self-deception. See the quotation in Ellis Nordberg. And here is Lewis's character, Curry:

 

"It was automatic for Curry to look very thoughtful, though he had never heard of Laird, and to say, 'Ah, Laird. Just remind me of the details of his academic career.'"

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 4, 7, p. 441.

 

"The fantastic suggestion that he, Curry, might be a bore, passed through his mind so swiftly that a second later he had forgotten it forever. The much less painful suggestion that these traditionalists and research beetles affected to look down on him was retained." (ibid.)