Livewell Sreet

Any fictional series can make a fictitious place seem real by presenting it as a constant backdrop of the characters' activities:

Conan Doyle has 221b, Baker St, and Victorian/Edwardian London;

Poul and Karen Anderson have the city of Ys;

Poul Anderson has Manse Everard's New York apartment.

Although Livewell Street appears only twice in a single novel, Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind, its fictitious ontological status is comparable to that of the other places listed. This street is in the city of Centauri on the Gulf of Centaurs on the planet Avalon in the Domain of Ythri. Christopher Holm and Tabitha Falkayn walk down Livewell Street. They see:

barges on an oily, littered canal;
dingy, ten- or twelve-storied buildings;
glaring signs for drink, food and fun;
ground vehicles and twelve kinds of pedestrians - one of Anderson's descriptive lists.

Sounds and smells are also listed. Chris calls the street a sty; Tabitha calls it fun. She insists that the Founder wanted nothing but freedom, not a purer way of life.

Later, an Ythrian flies above the Livewell Street canal. When the Terrans strike, she burns and falls into a burning house beside the boiling canal.

More On Livewell Street

Let's look longer at Livewell Street, Centauri, Avalon, where several important things happen. First, there are good Andersonian list descriptions. Part of the street runs beside a canal which is:

oily;
littered;
burdened with barges;
walled by high, dingy, close-packed buildings.

Glaring, blinking, leaping, crawling, colored signs advertise grog, dance, food, sensies, fun, drugs, gambling, girls and loans. The road is filled with groundbugs and the pavement with a sailor, a pilot, a raftman, a fisher, a hunter, a farmer, a whore, drunks, a monitor and a wild preacher. Humanity seethes, shrills and chatters. Engines rumble, feet shuffle, a loudspeaker blares. The air stinks of dirt, smoke, oil, sewage, flesh and surrounding swamps.

Arinnian, who must be Christopher Holm in this human town, thinks that Livewell Street is the old way from which the pioneers wanted to escape whereas Tabitha sees it as fun and thinks that the Founder, her ancestor, wanted nothing but elbow room. She has "'...read Falkayn's writings.'" (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 501)

A complete History of Technic Civilization would have to include:

The Sky Book Of Stormgate;
the complete Memoirs of Rear Admiral John Henry Reeves, Imperial Solar Navy;
Falkayn's writings.

Livewell On Delfinburg

There is livewell on Delfinburg. In other words, an Avalonian flower grows on a Terrestrial pontoon city. Anderson lists "...fragrances of rose, jasmine, aurelia, livewell..." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 31) when David and Coya Falkayn talk in a roof garden on Delfinburg in Mirkheim.

But the Falkayns have not colonized or even named Avalon yet. The planet, provisionally called "Gray," was discovered during the Grand Survey and later explored - so were flowers brought from it then? Or is livewell an Ythrian plant that has been brought to Earth and will later, like windnest and hammerbranch, be taken to Avalon?

I have only just noticed this reference to "livewell" in Mirkheim. It caught my attention because I had previously posted about Livewell Street as a place on Avalon, then had realized that the street was named after a plant. Anderson, writing Mirkheim later than the works set on Avalon, included livewell among the plants growing on Delfinburg.

The proliferation of future historical details is endless.

Addendum: The People Of The Wind, Chapter One, confirms that "livewell" is native to Avalon. See here.

Livewell And Tempests

A few posts ago, I highlighted a fictitious place, Livewell Street, in Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind. Now, rereading "Rescue on Avalon," I am reminded of what "livewell" is:

"After the wind-howl, this stillness felt almost holy. The air was chill but carried odors of plant life, sharp trefoil, sweet livewell, and janie."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 312.

Every detail of an Andersonian environment connects with some other detail, here the name of a street in a novel with the scent of a plant in a short story. "The wind-howl..." is another aspect of the Avalonian environment:

"...sudden tempests. The rapidly spinning globe was always breeding them." (p. 310)

The colonists have settled some of the Hesperian Islands and, from there, have moved to the Coronan continent and even begun to divide it between their two species. However, their ability to cope with or even to forecast the violent weather is as yet grossly inadequate. Thus, here is another story premise: how does a man who is allergic to Ythrians cope when he alone is close enough to rescue the Wyvan of Stormgate who has been injured in a storm?

"Free As A Bird" II

Human beings cannot fly with wings but can be free. Freedom is like a blank page on which an author can write anything. Free beings can do anything - anything within their capabilities but those capabilities are enhanced by technology.

Christopher/Arinnian thinks that the colonists of Avalon wanted to escape from the old way of life whereas Tabitha/Hrill replies:

"'I've read Falkayn's writings. He and his followers wanted not one thing except unmolested elbow room.'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT Chapter VI, p. 501.

In other words, they wanted nothing more than the freedom that I argued here is abundant on Avalon.

For the conversation between Chris and Tabitha, see:

Livewell Street
More On Livewell Street
Planha And Anglic

The Mighty Sagittarius And The Gulf Of Centaurs

"Where the mighty Sagittarius flows into the Gulf of Centaurs, Avalon's second city - the only one besides Gray which rated the name - had risen as riverport, seaport, spaceport, industrial center, and mart. Thus Centauri was predominantly a human town, akin to many in the Empire, thronged, bustling, noisy, cheerfully corrupt, occasionally dangerous. When he went there, Arinnian most of the time had to be Christopher Holm, in behavior as well as name."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VI, p. 499.

This is the opening paragraph of its chapter. For me, it is the moment when Anderson's Technic History comes most alive as a sequence of fictional places and periods. A major river on an extrasolar planet is named after a constellation. The Sagittarius and the Gulf of Centaurs are mentioned as if we knew them. Bustling cities are among Anderson's favorite environments. This city is outside the Terran Empire although akin to Imperial cities because it is mostly human. The adverb, "cheerfully," counterbalances and offsets the adjective, "corrupt."

The opening sentence lists three kinds of transport and two other fundamental human activities. Arinnian is a human being who prefers his Ythrian identity but must take care in a predominantly human town. The chapter proceeds to describe Livewell Street which I have discussed before and will again. We walk along the street beside the oily canal with Arinnian and Hrill, the latter a direct descendant of the Founder.

Falkayn founded Avalon and Flandry will defend the Empire but, for now, we are between the lives of both.

In Centauri

The People Of The Wind, VI.

This chapter is my favorite part of Poul Anderson's Technic History. I have quoted from its magnificent opening paragraph seven times:

"Where the mighty Sagittarius flows into the Gulf of Centaurs..."

The omniscient narrator describes the city of Centauri where the home guard and the Seamen's Brotherhood have held a conference to coordinate defense measures. Arinnian, who must usually be Christopher Holm in this human town, has attended as a top officer of the West Coronan home guard. Tabitha Falkayn has attended as aide to her business partner, Draun, who is higher than her in the northern Oronesian home guard. As on Aeneas, "...the Troubles had left a military tradition..." (p. 498)

Arinnian and Tabitha walk along Livewell Street. He wants to be called Arinnian and addressed in Planha and thinks that this rowdy street beside an oily canal is a sty and not what the pioneers wanted whereas Tabitha thinks that it is fun and that Falkayn wanted only elbow room. They eat in the Phoenix House. Initially, Arinnian declines a drink on the ground that it would dull his perceptions. Tabitha recognizes this as a Stormgate saying. Both have had adventures. Tabitha wandered the planet, working in different jobs, whereas Arinnian hid from his parents for a year in the Shielding Islands.

Tabitha expects Arinnian to welcome her suggestion that they drink in the Ythrian tavern, the Nest, whereas he thinks that taverns are wrong for Ythrians! When they do go there, they meet Vodan and Quenna. The latter is the fifteenth character in, so far, six chapters. I think that there will be more on this chapter tomorrow.

Planha And Anglic

We are still on Livewell Street. As they walk along the street, Chris asks Tabitha why she calls him by his human name and addresses him in Anglic. She points out that they are human and that they lack feathers.

"Ferune grimaced. But that is the wrong word. His feathers were not simply more intricate than those of Terran birds, they were more closely connected to muscles and nerve endings, and their movement constituted a whole universe of expression forever denied to man. Irritation, fret, underlying anger and dismay, rippled across his body." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 455)

In Planha, a single word can convey an Anglic sentence. (p. 462)

"Eyath whistled: '?'" (p. 446)

When Tabitha asks Chris why he minds, his mind flounders through the following reflections:

that personal a question is an insult;
unless between close friends, in which case it is an endearment;
no, she is probably thinking human!

Among carnivorous Ythrians, staring is even more offensive than among omnivorous human beings. (p. 459) Poul Anderson has lived and breathed the air of Ythri.

The Two Avalonian Cities

The People Of The Wind.

The two Avalonian cities, Gray on Falkayn Bay and Centauri on the Gulf of Centaurs, are very different from each other and are described in detail. Arinnian flies above then inland from Gray and spends time with Tabitha in Centauri where it is usually safer for him to be Christopher. We find that we have previously posted about both cities:

Gray

In Centauri

Livewell Street

In The Phoenix House

In The Phoenix House And The Nest

In The Nest

Gray and Centauri are more concretely realized than Stellamont on Nerthus in Poul Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History. It is good to be able to compare them.

Fictional Universes II

Fictional universes contain not only persons but also places that take on a life of their own. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Virgilian System includes the planets, Dido and Aeneas. The latter, lighter and dryer than Earth, kind of like a Mars with a breathable atmosphere, would have been more suitable for colonization by the nearby Ythrians. However, human scientists, wanting to study the tripartite inhabitants of the even less hospitable Dido, established a base, which became a University, on Aeneas. The Rebel Worlds, set mainly on Dido, has one chapter set on Aeneas. Its sequel, The Day Of Their Return, is, except for a single early flashback, set entirely on the surface of Aeneas. 

Hermes, important as the home planet both of David Falkayn and of Sandra Tamarin, remains off-stage until it becomes a major setting in Mirkheim and is again visited in A Stone In Heaven.

Avalon, is shown at four different stages of development in three short stories and one novel. Its notable locations include the Weathermother mountain range and the cities of Gray and Centauri, the latter containing Livewell Street named after a local flower.

Dennitza appears only in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows where, however, it imparts a real sense of place to the Kazan, the Obala and Zorkagrad.

Returning again to another author in another medium and genre, Alan Moore fully exploits the connotations and implications of the familiar place name, "Gotham City," before bringing on stage its most notorious inhabitant.

Ghosts In The Technic History

There are no ghosts in the Technic History. However, we can imagine and can also find occasional passages in which Anderson could have hinted. I discussed one such passage in:

Some Details On Aeneas
Ghost Ships And An Otherworldly Castle

In The People Of The Wind, the Avalonian city of Centauri has been evacuated because of an imminent Terran attack but the addled, permanently-on-heat, Ythrian female, Quenna, does not understand. Flying by night above the deserted city, she (thinks she) hears another pair of wings flapping and asks:

"'Vodan?'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT Chapter XVII, p. 629.

She remembers Vodan best of her naval clients. He was gentle and concerned about his fiancee. We know that he is dead. The drugged out Quenna could all too easily have imagined his return in an ambiguously written passage. However, the climax of this passage is Quenna's own death in the Terran attack. See Livewell Street.

On Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind.

The view of Gray and Falkayn Bay:

A View On Avalon
In Gray

The image on "A View Of Avalon" is of a book called Terra gegen Avalon, which looks as if it might mean "A Planet Called Avalon."

The Hesperian Sea is mentioned. We know from "Wingless" that the colonists of both species settled on the Hesperian Islands before moving to the Coronan continent.

We have just seen Ansa defeated by the Empire which now threatens the Lauran System.

Fortunately, having read an account of Arinnian's aerial view of Gray, we go on to read a later account of Tabitha's ground-based view and, unfortunately, the novel ends soon after that.

The second Avalonian city, Centauri, is described in More On Livewell Street.

Future Everyday Life

My favourite moments of future everyday life in Poul Anderson's Technic History are:

Jim Ching visiting Betty Riefenstahl in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (even more than Jim and Betty visiting Adzel):

Coya Conyon with Nicholas van Rijn in the chartered Ythrian ranger, Gaiian (=Dewfall) in "Lodestar";

Christopher Holm/Arinnian and Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill spending an evening in Centauri in The People of the Wind;

Dominic Flandry's souffle breakfast in his Archopolis apartment with the window open to the roof garden in A Stone in Heaven.

Arinnian and Hrill:

walk by the canal in Livewell Street;

eat piscoid-and-tomato chowder, beef-and-shua pie, clustergrain salad and pears and drink coffee spiced with witchroot and vintage dago in the Phoenix House;

meet Vodan and Quenna in the Nest where they drink New African beer.

As Larry Niven commented, Anderson immerses us in the future and puts us into a whole new world.

Real Places

Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind makes Livewell Street in Centauri on Avalon seem like a real place. The Bishop's Arms pub on Bellmansgatan in Stockholm is a real place. Googling reveals that Stieg Larsson regularly visited this pub which explains why he mentioned it in his The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.

It is that time of the evening when I do non-blog-related reading but find connections anyway. Novelists must make places seem real whether the places are fictional or real. Sometimes we don't know which but googling helps.

I did not expect to publish a picture of the Bishop's Arms or to advertise the pub here but any friend of Stieg Larsson deserves our support. I have become a big fan of Sweden.

In Centauri II

The People Of The Wind, VI.

Chris calls the noise and raucousness of Livewell Street "'...a sty...'" and contrasts it with his choth whereas Tabitha calls the same scene fun and insists that the Founder and his followers wanted nothing but "'...unmolested elbow room.'" (p. 501) They eat mixed human and Ythrian food in the Phoenix House and drink in the Nest. Tabitha hopes to meet Draun, her chothmate, business partner and superior in the guard. (She attended the conference as his aide.) Instead, they meet Chris's chothmate, Vodan, accompanied by Quenna, a permanently in-heat Ythrian female. He will report to his ship within hours.

Left alone with Tabitha, Chris struggles to articulate his double standard about women. As she expresses it for him, some "bird men," male human choth members, are:

"'...promiscuous as kakkelaks provided they don't much respect their partners, but hardly able to touch birds of the opposite sex.'" (p. 509)

She leaves, he winds up in bed with a casual acquaintance and force screens enclose the city as war is declared.

Arinnian And Hrill

We left Arinnian and Hrill walking by the oily canal in Livewell Street. See here. Each is a human member of a different choth.

Star Trek at its best brings out the differences between human and Vulcan mentalities. Thus, a Vulcan appointed to a responsible post should have won the appointment on his merits and therefore should not need to thank anyone who had recommended him for it. Nevertheless, a particular Vulcan observes the human custom by thanking Admiral Kirk, especially since Spock has told him that this human being is particularly worthy of respect. See Admiralty.

Similarly, Poul Anderson differentiates between human and Ythrian mentalities. Arinnian reflects:

Hrill has just asked him a very personal question;
that is an insult;
alternatively, it is an endearment between the closest friends...;
but she is probably just thinking human again!

No surprise: they are both human. Hrill/Tabitha Falkayn suggests that they speak Anglic because they lack the feathers for the proper use of Planha.

Arinnian/Christopher Holm cannot relax around "bird" women because he expects them to emulate (what he sees as) the purity of Ythrian females who have to be on heat for sex. See Arinnian's Problem.

I like the Avalonian environment and might stay with it for a while.

Kilts In Future Histories

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, unaccountably, men wear kilts.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, when Arinnian and Hrill walk along Livewell Street:

"Both wore thin short-sleeved blouses, kilts, and sandals..."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VI, p. 501.

How many readers notice and remember this detail? We do not expect the hero and heroine of a novel to be dressed identically. I hope that, if and when the Technic History comes to be filmed, such details will be accurately reproduced on screen.

They are surrounded by oily canal, dingy facades, glaring signs, ground vehicles, diverse pedestrians and polluted air. Arinnian thinks that:

"'...this is the old way, that the pioneers wanted to escape.'" (ibid.)

- whereas Hrill replies that Falkayn and his followers wanted nothing but:

"'...unmolested elbow room.'" (ibid.)

A colloquial phrase for freedom.

In Centauri

The People Of The Wind, VI.

Perhaps my favorite passage in the whole of Poul Anderson's Technic History is this chapter, filling thirteen pages in Rise Of The Terran Empire.

The mighty Sagittarius River flows into the Gulf of Centaurs on the continent of Corona on the planet Avalon in the Domain of Ythri during the Imperial period of Technic civilization - although Domain and Empire are distinct realms and indeed on the verge of war. At the Sagittarius rivermouth, Centauri is:

"...riverport, seaport, spaceport, industrial center, and mart." (p. 499)

Gray and Centauri are the only two Avalonian cities and mostly human since Ythrian society is not urban. Arinnian of Stormgate Choth must usually function as Christopher Holm when he travels from Gray to Centauri. He has become a top officer in the West Coronan home guard which must cooperate both with similar organizations elsewhere and with the Seamen's Brotherhood so a conference is held in Centauri. In particular, western Corona and northern Oronesia must defend the Hesperian Sea.

After the conference, Arinnian and Hrill of Highsky Choth, whose human name is Tabitha Falkayn and who represents her part of the Oronesian archipelago, walk down Livewell Street. He addresses her as "Hrill" and speaks Planha whereas she addresses him as "Chris" and speaks Anglic. He makes an issue of it. 

It gets better.

Recently On This Blog

(This afternoon, Christmas meal with former work colleagues at the White Cross.)

Recently on the blog, starting from "Where the mighty Sagittarius flows into The Gulf of Centaurs...," (here) we have considered:

Christopher Holm and Tabitha Falkayn on Livewell Street and in the Nest;

Ythrians on Avalon, on Ythri and in space;

The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

fictional languages;

Coya Conyon in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim;

various characters in The Day Of Their Return - Erannanth, Desai, Aycharaych, Uldwyr, Tatiana and Jaan but not yet Ivar Frederiksen;

prequels and sequels in the Technic History;

the town of Boseville on the Rive Flone on the planet Aeneas.

In fact, we have moved from Centauri on the Sagittarius on Avalon to Boseville on the Flone on Aeneas. Following the theme of Ythrians through the Technic History, I reopened The Day Of Their Return because its characters include Erannath of Stormgate Choth on Avalon, then got drawn further into the novel by the other characters. For example, there is a lot to be said about Chunderban Desai.
We have not yet exhausted a rereading of  The Day Of Their Return.

Some Details On Avalon

No forward moves with rereading The People Of The Wind today, I think. I am writing this post in an interval between Hannibal Lecter dvds.

Viewing Poul Anderson's Technic History as a four-dimensional continuum, I want to pause on certain rich moments along its timeline, like:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" for its glimpse of domestic life in the Solar Commonwealth;

The People Of The Wind for its information about life on Avalon.

We have reviewed almost everything about Avalon before but details that we have not mentioned recently include:

the mixed Ythrian and Terran meal that Chris and Tabitha eat at the Phoenix House comprises piscoid and tomato chowder, beef and shua pie, clustergrain leaf salad, pears and witchroot-spiced coffee;

the New African beer served at the Nest is described as thick and strong.

These descriptions are detailed enough to make us feel that we have shared the meal with the characters.

The assault on the senses on Livewell Street includes smells of dirt, smoke, oil, sewage, flesh and an odor from the surrounding swamps - so we gather that Centauri, second of only two Avalonian cities, is not a big city. Maybe Centauri was invented because Anderson wanted to describe a Terran strike on an Avalonian city and also wanted to spare Gray?