Lamentations And Invocations

When reading some Saint short stories by Leslie Charteris, I noticed similarities between Simon Templar and Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry. Then I remembered that Hank Davis did state in a The Technic Civilization Saga introduction that Anderson had intended Flandry to be an sf counterpart to Templar. Next, I will quote an account of another famous fictional character while omitting the character's name:

"I pass over the spectacle of [name] on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar."

Although this reads exactly like Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn, the source is:

Agatha Christie, "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" IN Christie, Poirot Investigates (London, 1981), pp. 92-109 AT p. 98.

Three more comparisons and then some differences. First, Poirot says:

"'The true clues are within - here!' He tapped his forehead. 'See you, I need not have left London. It would have been sufficient for me to sit quietly in my rooms there. All that matters is the little grey cells within.'"

-Agatha Christie, "The Kidnapped Prime Minister" IN Poirot Investigates, pp. 129-151 AT p. 144.

Van Rijn says:

"'...tonight I have been on Cain up here, in this old brain, and it is rusty and afloat in alcohol but it has stored away more information about the universe than maybe the universe gets credit for holding.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1964), pp. 115-159 AT pp. 153-154.

Secondly, the Belgian Poirot's turns of phrase confirm that he is not a native English speaker. Van Rijn at least pretends to have trouble with Anglic but what would his first language have been?

Thirdly, both series commence with their central character advanced in years. Poirot has retired from the Belgian Police before becoming a private investigator and van Rijn approaches an age when he has to stay at home and send younger men into space.

Differences

Poirot is usually composed. His distress when seasick or riding a camel is unusual but genuine. By contrast, van Rijn habitually shrieks, gesticulates and invokes but this is often if not always an act to project a dynamic image while making his enemies underestimate him. 

Secondly, although van Rijn avoids violence, he is able to handle himself in combat, a situation that Poirot never has to face.

Van Rijn And Poirot

the canny trader van Rijn survives, prospers and profits only if he continues to understand ever new examples of alien biology and psychology and Anderson can imagine these as genuinely alien by reasoning from the basic premises of different stellar and planetary environments. Van Rijn’s deductive processes resemble Hercules Poirot’s. He works hard at thinking out new situations even while lounging and drinking beer but is physically powerful and skilled enough to handle himself in a fight with an alien warrior if necessary.
-copied from here.

Both are intelligent. One detects. The other trades.

Van Rijn speaks Anglic with malapropisms. Poirot speaks English with a trace of French.

Both are Catholic, like Fr. Brown. Van Rijn invokes St Dismas. Poirot at the end puts himself outside the Church's way to salvation by murdering a murderer. He cannot confess to a priest and must ask God directly for forgiveness.

Poirot's Last Case is on TV.

Clues

"Hiding Place."

The pilot of the captured spaceship must be:

strong, long-armed and large-handed - like a giant;

 

able not only to read very small display panels but also to turn a key at the bottom of a small, narrow hole - like a dwarf.

 

Clues to the pilot's nature accumulate. 

 

Van Rijn practices detective skills like Poirot. Van Rijn and Poirot are Catholics, are not native English/Anglic speakers and are first seen late in their careers. However, their differences are more numerous than their similarities. Poirot is known through cinema and TV. Van Rijn should be.

 

I prefer sf to detective fiction. In particular, I dislike the crossword puzzle aspect of detective fiction, having to reread passages in earlier chapters in search of the clues that are supposed to be there.

 

Addendum: After I published this post, Poirot was on TV in the episode where he walks out of our local Midland Hotel in Morecambe.

"Sherlock Nero Poirot"

To answer an earlier question, I have read:

no Nero Wolfe or Gideon Fell;
very little Miss Marple or Lord Peter Wimsey;
maybe two Fr Brown collections.

What I like about the Fr Brown series is that the villain reforms and becomes the detective's companion.

When Poul Anderson's Trygve Yamamura taunts a friend as "Sherlock Nero Poirot," we recognize at least two of these names and can easily learn the significance of the one that is less familiar. In fact, googling "Nero detective" brings up Nero Wolfe.

Anderson's text almost certainly means that Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe and Hercule Poirot are known as fictional characters to Yamamura and his friend as they are to Anderson and his readers but there is another possibility. Fictional characters can be real to each other. There is some evidence that Holmes is real to Wolfe. See here. Both Holmes and Poirot become celebrities in their fictional worlds. Therefore, one or both could be known to Yamamura as a celebrity rather than as a fiction. Holmes' world contains not only the events of "A Scandal in Bohemia" etc but also Watson's published accounts of those events - thus raising the question whether Watson reported accurately. Fiction can go through some very strange stages. Holmes is real to Anderson's Time Patrol. However, if Holmes is real to Wolfe, it does not follow that the Patrol and Wolfe are real to each other because Holmes can exist in more than one alternative world.

Discussing detective fiction has led to discussing alternative history fiction. Imagine all the detectives existing in their parallel worlds - and someone communicating between them.

One Last Time

"'And so we fare forth again, we three and our ship, like our young days come back,' Adzel sighed, 'except that this time our mission is not into the hopeful yonder.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT p. 46.

The trader team has appeared only four times before. Only once have we seen them on a typical trade pioneer crew mission, their first. In the remaining three installments, they instead responded to particular crises as they do again here but this time the team has had to be specially reconvened long after its disbandment. However, we know that they did conduct many lucrative missions both before and after being joined by van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon, who married David Falkayn.

There were many installments of Poirot and Hastings. Hastings, old, joins Poirot, not only old but at death's door, on a holiday at Styles and is disgusted when Poirot tells him to look not back but forward:

"'What is there to look forward to?'"
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), CHAPTER TWO, p. 16.

To his astonishment, they are there "'...to hunt down a murderer.'" (ibid.)

One last time...

The Last Word

Who has the last word in a work of fiction and especially in the concluding installment of a series? It could be:

the omniscient narrator;
a third person pov;
a first person pov;
a closing remark by one of the characters.

Poul Anderson's trader team series ends with "Lodestar." Mirkheim is a sequel in which the old team is reassembled later for a different purpose. "Lodestar" ends when Nicholas van Rijn's granddaughter sees that he is "...indeed old." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 680) Mirkheim ends when "...eastern clouds turned red." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 291) - a morning, a new beginning, but with sunset colors symbolizing the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League.

Dominic Flandry's testament, on the last page of The Game Of Empire, is his short speech about "'...the game of empire, of life, whatever you want to call it...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 453) but then he settles some practical matters and the novel ends with Axor's smile, reflecting Kipling.

Manse Everard cursorily ends the Time Patrol series:

"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away." (Time Patrol, p. 765)

The TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Curtain: Poirot's Last Case ends with Poirot's last words about good days but I find to my surprise that the novel follows the "End of Hercule Poirot's manuscript" with a "Final note by Captain Arthur Hastings," referring to "...the brand of Cain..." (p. 188)

These are all appropriate endings but it made sense for the TV version to end with Poirot's words and now I quote Puck:

ROBIN

 If we shadows have offended,

 Think but this, and all is mended—

 That you have but slumbered here

 While these visions did appear.

 And this weak and idle theme,

 No more yielding but a dream,

 Gentles, do not reprehend.

 If you pardon, we will mend.

 And, as I am an honest Puck,

 If we have unearnèd luck

 Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

 We will make amends ere long.

 Else the Puck a liar call.

 So good night unto you all.

 Give me your hands if we be friends,

 And Robin shall restore amends.

-see here.

Good Years

Adzel:

"'...those were good years. Were they not? I will miss my partners. I told Davy so.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT p. 289.

Chee Lan:

"'We enjoyed the trader game as long as that lasted.'"
-op. cit, p. 291.

Fortunately, these two agree to continue:

"'...conferring, Adzel, for the rest of our days...'"
-op. cit., p. 290

- although for practical, political purposes, not just for sentimentality.

Hercule Poirot:

"'"We shall not hunt together again, my friend. Our first hunt was here - and our last...
"'"They were good days.
"'"Yes, they have been good days...'"

"(End of Hercule Poirot's manuscript.)"
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), p. 188.

Watching Curtain, I was struck by the similarity between Adzel's and Poirot's assessments of their careers. I will now read Curtain for the first time and will look out for any further similarities.

Literary Universes

Some authors interconnect their works:

characters from several works by Poul Anderson meet in the Old Phoenix Inn and more could have done;

half a dozen series by ERB are set in the same Solar System and, in one case, beyond the Solar System - thus, Tarzan returns from the Earth's Core shortly before Carson Napier sets off for Mars but lands on Venus etc;

both John Buchan and Dornford Yates present interactions between characters from different novels and series and even, in Yates's case, different genres;

Poirot and Marple do coexist although they do not meet.

Alan Moore describes a multi-author equivalent:

"...all the comic book stories produced by any given publisher are likely to take place in the same imaginary universe."

-Alan Moore, INTRODUCTION IN Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, Saga Of The Swamp Thing (New York, 1987), pp. v-xi AT pp. vi-vii.

 

Moore explains:

 

"For those more familiar with conventional literature, try to imagine Dr. Frankenstein kidnapping one of the protagonists of Little Women for his medical experiments, only to find himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Sherlock Homes and Hercule Poirot." (p. vii)

 

Three Observations 

(i) Here we connect with Anderson because Holmes exists in the Time Patrol timeline. The Patrol must prevent Holmes from detecting their activities in his period but I speculate that they consult him during his retirement when such consultation no longer runs any risk of being recorded by Watson.

 

(ii) Alan Moore went on to write The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which all literary and fictional characters coexist.

 

(iv) Anderson's imaginary universes should be able to produce an equivalent of what Moore imagines involving Frankenstein, Little Women, Holmes and Poirot. Maybe Merau Varagan kidnaps Dahut in an attempt to prevent the inundation of Ys but finds himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Trygve Yamamura and Bob Shining Knife, the FBI Agent in Operation Otherworld. Such a crossover narrative could be written without compromising the integrity of any of the individual works.

A Roman Policier

 

Mirkheim, XIX.

Once or twice, I have compared Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn in some, not all, respects to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Van Rijn makes this comparison almost explicit:

"'We ought to put on a scene like from a roman policier, where I dump a kilo of clues on the rug and we fit them together in the shape of the villain, us having a guilting bee...'" (p. 256)

I am all too familiar with such scenes because while I read or blog and Sheila knits, at the far end of the room she usually has the TV on with a Drama Channel that endlessly reshows detective series, including Poirot. In fact, a prolonged scene of this sort was showing while I was typing this post. So is Poirot among the romans policiers seen by van Rijn?

Old Friends

OK:

Holmes on Watson;
Poirot on Hastings;
M. on Ian Fleming;
van Rijn on Falkayn.

"...the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken." (See here.)

"'You, my good, my honest, my oh so honourable Hastings - so kindly, so conscientious - so innocent!'"
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), POSTSCRIPT, p. 179.

M. writes that the publicity around some of James Bond's adventures:

"...made him, much against his will, something of a public figure, with the inevitable result that a series of popular books came to be written around him by a personal friend and former colleague of James Bond. If the quality of these books, or their degree of veracity, had been any higher, the author would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It is a measure of the disdain in which these fictions are held at the Ministry, that action has not yet - I emphasize the qualification - been taken against the author and publisher of these high-flown and romanticized caricatures of episodes in the career of an outstanding public servant."
-Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (London, 1966), 21, p. 180.

"'Ja! Ja! Friend! So nice, so kind, maybe so far-sighted - Who, what I thought of like a son, broke his oath of fealty to me? Who broke kinship?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 631-682 AT p. 680.

I noticed a similarity between Poirot's and van Rijn's words, then had to include Holmes and M. as well. Fleming is clever: Bond has indeed become "...something of a public figure..." but because of the books, then the films, and the poor "...veracity..." covers the many inconsistencies.

Spring

"This day was utter springtime. Sunlight poured around tall white clouds, down among untold wings, through air soft and sweet-smelling and full of birdsong."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Four, Chapter XXIII, p. 370.

I quote these sentences because they describe yet another seasonal change again by appealing to three senses. The passage continues:

"A mist of green over land and trees had thickened to a foam, fast becoming a sea. Raindrops glinted on shrubs." (ibid.)

Anderson's characters need to look at this instead of plotting revenge and the seizure of power. In Norway, under King Haakon, laws are just, judgments are righteous, the land is at peace, trade thrives, harvests are good on land and at sea, the people and their gods love the king - yet Gunnhild and her sons lay long-term plans to disrupt all this.

Gunnhild and the priest Brihtnoth have "sinned" by behaving naturally. Brihtnoth will not confess until he is in England and:

"He had sworn to her that his confessor would keep the secret. Among other things, Brihtnoth belonged to a high-standing family." (p. 371)

I was brought up to believe that every confessor always kept every secret, whether the family was high- or low-standing, but what is the history of the seal of confession? Did it take a few centuries for it to harden into an absolute professional confidentiality?

When, at the end, Hercule Poirot murders a murderer, he cannot confess to a priest because the latter would withhold absolution until Poirot had confessed to the police. Poirot must resort to the Protestant position of facing God without a priest.

Confession

Operation Luna.

Ginny's brother is put through a "'...psychoscopy...,'" (26, p. 239) which must be the goetic equivalent of a hypnoprobe or a kyradex. (Scroll down.)

Steve tells his brother-in-law that the government investigators:

"'...keep confessions under seal same as priests or doctors.'" (29, p. 259)

Once when I sat to meditate in St. Wilfrid's Church, Preston (see image), a man approached and asked if I knew whether anyone was hearing confessions. I had to say no. I was there to practice a different religion. (The public are invited to enter to pray or mediate.) A woman came in and practiced yet another, walking around kissing the statues of saints. Sometimes, if you sit or kneel in a church, someone watches you, then follows you out and asks you for money.

Ian Hislop said on TV that journalists tried to pay his vicar to learn whether he had said anything interesting in confession! Agatha Christie's Poirot cannot receive absolution from a priest because the priest would insist on Poirot first confessing murder to the police and Poirot, for his own purposes, needs to disguise the murder as suicide so he directly asks God to forgive him.

Of Poul Anderson's Technic History characters:

Nicholas van Rijn and Admiral Cajal are Catholics;
I deduce that Eric Wace is also Catholic (see here);
Philippe Rochefort and Francis Xavier Axor are Jerusalem Catholics;
Dominic Flandry's fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, is an Orthochristian, later canonized.

These six characters would confess sins to a priest.

We also see Catholicism and several other religions survive into SM Stirling's Emberverse.

Poul Anderson's Big Four

Poul Anderson's two main series are the Technic History and the Time Patrol. His four main characters are Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn, Dominic Flandry and Manse Everard.

Falkayn works for Solar Spice & Liquors, Flandry for Terran Naval Intelligence and Everard for the Time Patrol. All three excel in their respective lines of work. Falkayn goes further by discovering Mirkheim, founding the Supermetals Company, becoming Acting CEO of SSL and leading the colonization of the planet Avalon. Flandry achieves considerably more than his job specifications. He not only defeats a rebellion but also arranges the escape of the rebels and the murder of the corrupt Governor who had provoked the rebellion and gets away with all of this. Everard leads the Patrol in divergent timelines when it is necessary to restore the history that had led to the Danellians who founded the Patrol.

Van Rijn, when we know him, does not work for anyone. He has founded and singlehandedly directs SSL. Further, he continually works to project an image of himself that will mislead his competitors and get the best results from his employees. Thus, he is the most complex of Anderson's Big Four.

Agatha Christie's The Big Four was on television last night. There are definite parallels between Poirot's and van Rijn's detective skills. Poirot deduces the motives and identities of murderers. Van Rijn deduces the motivations of alien species and thus learns how to do business with them.

From Flandry To Bond To Poirot

Poul Anderson wrote some detective fiction and a lot of sf and his sf character, Dominic Flandry, is comparable to James Bond although published earlier.

Because a rogue planet plays a major role in the climax of Anderson's sf novel, Ensign Flandry, rogue planets are introduced in the dialogue in an early chapter. Similarly, in detective fiction, any clues cited during the solution of the mystery have to have been planted earlier.

It was not Anderson's detective, Trygve Yamamura, but James Bond who drew me into reading some Agatha Christie, the connection being that both Bond and Poirot travel in the Orient Express. On rereading Dead Man's Folly after many years, I discovered that, although a character is quoted in a later chapter as having said something in an earlier chapter, I cannot confirm even by careful rereading that she did say it earlier. Can Agatha Christie have got such a detail wrong? I am willing to discuss this with any Christie fan who may be interested. It takes us away from Poul Anderson as such but stays with the question of how to write a detective novel.

Last Appearances And Reading Orders

Agatha Christie wrote a concluding Hercule Poirot novel to be published later. Poirot dies. Andrea Camilerri wrote a concluding Salvo Montalbano novel to be published later. I am about to read it. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a concluding Sherlock Holmes short story to be published immediately. Holmes died but - we know what happened.

Usually, an author simply writes a last episode of a series and the last published episode is also the last in terms of fictional chronology. Our chronologically last sight of Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, both still alive, is at the end of Anderson's novel, Mirkheim. However, reading the Technic History in its original book publication order enables us to appreciate that finale, then to recapture these and a few supporting characters as they had appeared in chronologically earlier instalments. Six characters appear in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy (Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World and Mirkheim):

van Rijn (6 times)

Falkayn (5)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (3)

Coya Conyon/Falkayn (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

- and (re)appear, earlier in their lives, in The Earth Book of Stormgate:

van Rijn (4)

Falkayn (2)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (2)

Coya Conyon (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

If we can get hold of the volumes, then we have a choice between this reading order and the purely chronological order presented in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga.

Fictions Within Fictions

Fictional characters are usually fictions to each other although there are exceptions. This includes fictional detectives who refer to each other in general and to Sherlock Holmes in particular. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, Holmes is sometimes referred to by name in contexts where he might be just the familiar fictional character but he also appears, without being named, as a real person. It is the responsibility of the reader to recognize him. At least two other Anderson works hint at a real Holmes in their pasts and his Old Phoenix multiverse allows familiar figures, again including Holmes, to be fictional in one universe but real in another.

This brings us to Hercule Poirot's companion, Captain Hastings, who says:

"'Obvious, my dear Watson,' I quoted lightly."

-Agatha Christie, "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat" IN Christie, Poirot Investigates (London, 1981), pp. 48-64 AT p, 51.

We are expected to notice that Hastings misquotes first because Holmes says, "Elementary," not "Obvious," and secondly because, although Holmes does say both "Elementary" and "my dear Watson," he never, in our hearing, says both together.

In these ways, all fiction can refer to all previous fiction. Thus, Poul Anderson refers to Shakespearean characters, Holmes, James Bond, Clark Kent, Huckleberry Finn, Sancho Panza, a Lensman and HG Wells. (I acknowledge that Wells is an author, not a character.)

Captives Of Their Captives

"Hiding Place."

The crew of the captured alien spaceship have, first, done everything in their power to destroy any clue as to their size and shape and, secondly, concealed themselves in the menagerie of exotic animals that they had been transporting. Detective work begins. In some respects, Nicholas van Rijn resembles Hercule Poirot. (Also, both are Catholics - but Poirot is a gentleman.)

The size of the control console suggests a giant pilot while the force needed to push down the control panels suggests corresponding strength whereas the miniature viewscreens and meters seem designed for dwarfs. Two species operating in cahoots? (That is nearly the answer.)

The Hebe G.B. holds the captive craft in a tractor beam whereas the latter, flying on automatics, pulls the former through hyperspace on an undesirable course so which is the prisoner of which? What will their destination be like? Will the Hebe G.B.'s supplies last long enough? Will van Rijn identify the crew and then be able to do business with them? (They have good reason to fear human beings.)

Imagine another kind of ship with an internal, self-sustaining ecology accelerating forever on hyperdrive. It would become a universe unto itself.

Van Rijn POV III

For references, see here.

For the merchants' deliberations, see here.

Van Rijn:

"...thought back to days when he had ridden ships through yonder spaces, bargaining in strange cities or strange wildernesses, or beneath unblue skies and in poisonous winds, for treasures Earth had not yet imagined. For a moment, wistfulness tugged at him. A long time now since he had been any further than the Moon ...poor aging fat man, chained to a single planet and cursed whenever he turned an honest credit." (p. 147)

Comments
We would like to read a "Young van Rijn" series. Sometimes, as with Flandry, we read about a character's later years after we have read about his earlier years. At other times, as with van Rijn, the earlier years are left to the imagination. Van Rijn has some similarities to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot who started his private detective agency after he had retired from a position in the Belgian police. Thus, both series begin with an already aged central character.

Throughout history, the Moon has been unreachable and unattainable. In some sf, "no further than the Moon" means like our backyard.

We think that van Rijn's self-pity is an act even if he sometimes internalizes it. He does not give a damn about criticism of his profit-making. He goes on to think:

"...he could retire, but then what would there be to engage his energies?" (p. 147)

That is pathetic. There is plenty to do when you retire - unless you are so nose-to-the-grindstone that you forget everything else? Van Rijn will eventually lobby to hold the League together, then, we think, lead an expedition outside known space - a perfect use for his energies.

Conversational Narration

"The Master Key."

"The Master Key" remains a five-sided conversation with two men recounting events on Cain while three listen and comment. There is no transition to a multi-page first person narrative, therefore no need for the reverse transition back to dialogue. At the end, van Rijn, Poirot-like, solves the case, deploying several malapropisms:

"'A man with a superiority complexion...'" (p. 323);

"'Recapitalize.'" (ibid.)

"'In puncture of fact...'" (ibid.)

"'I make no blasfuming...'" (ibid.)

As blog correspondent, David Birr, once argued in the combox, van Rijn proves his mastery of languages when necessary, which demonstrates that his Manglic (mangled Anglic) is an act, to make opponents underestimate him.

We approach the end of a rereading of "The Master Key." However, the story concludes with an anthropological observation requiring further discussion.

Sherlock Holmes And The Time Patrol

Time Patrolman Manson Everard works to prevent the British agent Altamont from detecting the Time Patrol military studies group during the build up to World War I. Altamont is an alias for Sherlock Homes. Holmes must be prevented from learning about the Patrol because he is a public figure, his exploits recorded by John Watson. Many of Holmes' cases are reported in the Strand magazine and documentation of even more investigations, preserved in a bank vault, will be studied by posterity. Despite the Patrol's efforts, Watson does refer to one Patrol case, involving a barrow at Addleton.

However, during Holmes' long retirement, we are informed of only two investigations, into a German spy ring and the "Lion's Mane," respectively. Since most of this period of Holmes' life remains unrecorded, it would be possible for Patrol agents to interact with him for much of this time without any fear that their existence might become more widely known. Thus, they might consult or even recruit him, as suggested here.

(I reflect on Holmes and Watson because Ketlan, in hospital, reads about their successors, Poirot and Hastings.)