Dead Leaves

I asked where Dominic Flandry encounters dead leaves. Sean Brooks replied that Flandry used dead leaves as a metaphor for the decline of Technic civilization and that Flandry and Miriam Abrams walked through autumnal woods. The latter case is a pathetic fallacy because Dominic and Miriam are starting an autumnal affair.

I remembered another pathetic fallacy and found it here. However, the phrase used in the text is not "dead leaves" but:

"...tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. All nature was saying farewell."
-Sir Dominic Flandry, p. 552.

I called this "explicit pathetic fallacy" because nature says farewell as Kossara goes to her death - and the reader has had ample warning that something bad is going down.

There is also irony. As the march approaches Parliament, Kossara says:

"'Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a thousand years.'" (p. 558)

Will they? We soon learn that they will sing of Kossara for more than a thousand years because she is about to die and will soon after that be canonized by her fellow Dennitzan OrthoChristians.

Lead And Leaves

The following passage is copied from here.

There may be some textual evidence that the demons are not really at large. When Domenico wondered why an angel conjured by the white magicians appeared headless:

“The leaden skies returned him no answer.” ²⁹

And when Hess suggests that they are all insane, he does so “…in a leaden monotone.” ³⁰

Does Hess’ leaden monotone confirm that Domenico’s leaden skies are part of a collective hallucination? The word “leaden” seems significant. Blish would have known that he used it twice and that, by doing so, he linked an inner state, insanity, to an outer appearance, an unanswering sky. However, the Goat’s swallowing of the hysterically incredulous Hess seems even more significant, a decisive statement that demons are real.

I quote this passage because it discusses James Blish's double use of the word "leaden." When a competent writer reuses a word or phrase, he knows that it will resonate with the reader. Poul and Karen Anderson once again refer to "dead leaves":

"Eochaid looked away, into darkness. 'This is no real home for me,' rustled from him, like dead leaves blowing. 'If I must become a roofless wanderer again, or die, after striking Niall down, why, its joyous I'd go to my doom.'"
-The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter XVII, section 2, p. 337.

Eochaid looks into darkness and contemplates his death and doom. So the darkness is not merely physical. His proximity to death is emphasized by the reference to dead leaves. His voice sounds like their rustling sound. He is being identified with, or is sinking into, a dead part of nature. Although our old friend, the wind, is not directly mentioned, it is clearly blowing the leaves.

Wind And Dead Leaves

Late at night, I read other kinds of fiction and find parallels with Poul Anderson. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Book Two, "The Dark Knight Triumphant," ends with:

a silent panel showing the Moon above the roof of a building that we realize is Wayne Manor;

a panel showing Bruce Wayne looking out a window with a caption, "The wind rises, tearing dead leaves free";

a silent panel with a flying bat outlined against the Moon above the roof;

Wayne at the window with a caption, "Frogs croak like a cartoon car alarm. Crickets pick up the chorus";

the bat has nearly flown past, the tip of one wing still outlined against the Moon - caption, "A wolf howls";

Wayne at the window - caption, "I know how he feels."

Not all relevant but some of it is: rising wind and dead leaves and maybe we think of Steve Matuchek?

It is nearly midnight. Good night.

Dead Leaves And Drows

"...three dolmens. Folk feared those giant-works from an age forgotten and left offerings to slake whatever drows haunted them."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book One, Chapter VIII, p. 321.

"...drows..." is one of those words that sounds familiar and that can be understood in a general sense from its context. However, it is good to check it.

Gunnhild and her ally, with guards far enough behind not to overhear, are walking in a borderland between cultivation and wilderness. We should look out for references to at least three senses:

"The sky was an unbounded blue overhead,..." (p. 320)

 - sight and color -

"...full of wings between strewn clouds,..." (ibid.)

- more sights and maybe the wingbeats are audible? -

"...the calls of wanderbirds blowing down..." (ibid.)

- in any case, the calls can be heard -

"...like dead leaves off branches." (ibid.)

That was unexpected. Here is an image, of falling leaves, but Gunnhild is not seeing the leaves. They are a metaphor for the bird calls.

"A breeze drifted to and fro,..." (ibid.)

- so she feels the air moving -

"...a touchy chilly,..." (ibid.)

- in fact, she feels cold -

"...smelling of wet earth." (ibid.)

- and a fourth sense is addressed, with hints of wetness and earthiness.

The descriptive passage continues with wan sunlight and shimmering fjord but we have already found more than three senses.

Wind In Ys II

Gallicenae, VIII, 4.

As Gratillonius sets off to face the challenger in the Wood:

"The wind shrilled, sent dead leaves scrittling along the street, roused little breakers on rain puddles." (p. 184)

Dead leaves lead the King to a death, either his or the challenger's. Or so we think.

"...a squad of marines formed a line to hold back the crowd.

"Through the wind, Gratillonius heard shouted wishes for his victory." (p. 185)

The wind symbolizes the forces ranged against him and, against that, is the support of his subjects.

In the Wood where the fight must take place:

"Wind eddied about, wailed and mumbled." (p. 186)

Incessant threat.

When, by the royal oak, the Speaker for Taranis signs the kneeling King and challenger with holy water and invokes the Father God:

"Wind boomed. A raven flew overhead." (p. 187)

When Gratillonius and the challenger, Rufinus, already known to each other, go off alone and converse before fighting:

"Wind brawled, swirled under armour, made the Wood groan." (p. 189)

They do not want to fight. Groaning is appropriate.

When Rufinus promises to be gentle with the Queens and their daughters if he wins, he:

"...traced a sign with his spear, in the wind." (p. 189)

When they prepare to fight:

"Wind keened; the raven, settled on an unrestful bough, croaked hoarsely; fallen leaves squelped." (p. 190)

The Greek chorus of the wind has been joined by the raven and the leaves.

And again:

"Wind blew." (ibid.)

It never lets up. While they fight:

"Through the wind, Gratillonius heard how Rufinus panted, while blood soaked his breeches and footsteps." (p. 191)

When Gratillonius should, by the law of Ys, kill the defeated Rufinus, he remembers that Mithras forbids human sacrifice and:

"It was as if Bodilis were suddenly there in the wind and the wet, Bodilis whom Gratillonius would seek back to as soon as he was able." (p. 192)

Gratillonius extracts Rufinus' surrender and spares his life. The wind brings death and life.

A Dead Leaf On A Winter Wind

See "Pride," here.

"Abruptly the hull shuddered and bucked." (p. 22)

I quoted this sentence as an example of the unexpected here.

The paragraph ends:

"Like a dead leaf on a winter wind, Valkyrie tumbled through space, borne wherever the cosmos cast her." (ibid.)

I have searched the blog for "dead leaves" and found many posts (see here) but not as yet the one that I was looking for, where spacecraft are compared to dead leaves. I think that it was in The Peregrine.

I have found the passage (see Leaf And Stars) and it is not about spaceships but about someone inside one.

In The Sacred Wood

There is a conspiracy against Gratillonius. The Roman authorities move most military men out of Ys. Then hundreds of Franks march in to challenge the King in succession. Gratillonius defeats the first challenger. Then, healed of his injury by Dahut, he shows his leadership qualities by leading an unexpected sally of armed Ysans against the Frankish camp. That is the way to do it.

Look out for appeals to at least three of the senses when the King and his first challenger walk into the Sacred Wood:

"Dead leaves crackled underfoot. Sun-speckled shadow filled the space among the oaks, below their arching crowns. For some reason, no squirrel or bird was about, but the wind blustered through branches, making them creak as well as rustle. It smelled of dampness."
-Dahut, Chapter VII, section 1, p. 137.

The reference to dead leaves is appropriate since one of the men will soon be dead. We have got used to the wildness and symbolism of the wind. For sight, we have sunlight, shadows and spaces between the trees. There is silence from animals and birds but also crackling, creaking and rustling. And the concluding sentence, as we expect, gives us the sense of smell. There is not only deadness but also dampness in the Sacred Wood. Do not hurry on to read about the fight. Pause to appreciate the sensory impressions, for one of these men his last.

Reflections On Death

Fiction reflects life which includes death so some writers of fiction reflect on death:

 

"'That is the human mentality again,' said Aycharaych. 'Your instincts are such that you never accept dying. You, personally, down underneath everything, do you not feel death is just a little bit vulgar, not quite a gentleman?'

"'Maybe. What would you call it?'

"'A completion.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 149-301 AT II, p. 164.

 

So Chereionites have instincts that do accept death? Well, we will learn in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows that they are extinct, except for Aycharaych. Later in "Hunters...," he will set out to complete Flandry's life. 

In A Knight..., Aycharaych suggests that the consciousness of a mere few decades of life makes human beings always in haste. So Chereionites live longer than just a few decades? That makes sense and might make it easier for them to accept death.

Aycharaych continues:

"'It may be the root of your greatness as a race... Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint? Could a Tu Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow, cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage. What depth does the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?'"

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra, pp. 339-606 AT IX, p. 460.

A futuristic sf novel does not need references to Bach, Rembrandt or Tu Fu but is nevertheless enriched by them, especially when expressed in Poul Anderson's prose. Dead Leaves have become a blog theme. There will be more "Reflections on Death."

Perfect Pathetic Fallacy

Gratillonius must address the people of Confluentes to inform them that:

they are now all full citizens of the Roman Republic (Empire);

he is no longer King of Ys but a curial of Aquilo with responsibility for former Ysans;

he must collect (ruinous) taxes, enforce laws and return runaway slaves to where they belong.

How does the citizenry respond? Maeloch spits. Bomatin glares. Bannon clutches his knife. And how does nature respond? It always does in an Anderson text.

The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter XII, section 2, ends with short excerpts from Gratillonius' speech, then with a single concluding sentence expressing perfect pathetic fallacy:

"The wind scattered his words with the dead leaves." (p. 240)

We become very familiar with dead leaves as with the wind. Where does Flandry encounter them?

Wind And Rain At Castle Beynac

Orion Shall Rise, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, 3.

See Low Clouds. 

The place is Castle Beynac. (See also image.) The person is Ashcroft Lorens Mayn, brother of Iern's estranged wife, Faylis. Lorens has come as the new castlekeeper in place of the fugitive Ierns or any other member of Clan Ferlay but is met - not greeted - by an unfriendly and unwelcoming reception committee. When he greets and addresses them, wishing them "'...peace and welfare...,'" (p. 301) the wind responds for them:

"'Wind seized the formality and scattered it like the dead leaves that tumbled past." (p. 301)

We have had dead leaves before.

Lorens is a good man serving a bad usurper. He is in a much less tenable position than Flandry under Molitor. 

When the reception committee formally refuses to accept or admit Lorens or even to offer hospitality for the night, he must respond "...through the wind..." (p. 302) and, when he turns to lead his men in search of an inn:

"It began to rain in earnest." (p. 302)

The weather confirms the local hostility and inhospitality. Apart from the fact that he serves Jovain, Lorens behaves impeccably. When asked, he states his errand and, when required to go, goes.

Rufinus And Eochaid

The Dog And The Wolf, XVII, 2.

"'This is no real home for me,' rustled from [Eochaid], like dead leaves blowing." (p. 337)

Dead leaves are becoming ubiquitous like the wind.

Rufinus joins Eochaid whose ship will join Niall's fleet. We begin to glimpse Rufinus' plan to eliminate Niall. Individual assassinations are preferable to mass slaughters but we have come to that time in the evening when I turn to other reading so we must leave Niall as he prepares to celebrate Beltene in the opening paragraph of Section 3. The story continues. The plot thickens. I even remember some of it from previous readings.

Niall reminds me of Harald Hardrada, the title character of Poul Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy: a tall man whose only activity is to seize wealth created by others. Harald's death in battle is recorded as having happened at a particular time and place in English history whereas the Andersons have considerable literary freedom when recounting the death of Niall. They will give him a good send-off.

Wardens And The Wind

 

The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"[Lockridge] stood for a time and raged. Outside, the wind gusted under the eaves." (p. 154)

As within, so without.

When he goes outside:

"The wind streaked around him, with a rattle of dead leaves." (ibid.)

Dead leaves - death. The moon looks shrunken and he also hears the hunters.

When he rejoins Auri, who immediately says that Storm is not and cannot be the Goddess, Lockridge replies:

"'She isn't...'" (p. 156)

He has seen enough to know that Storm is not the Goddess as understood by Auri. 

He has also begun to move towards a position independent of both Wardens and Rangers. More must happen in just under fifty pages. The conclusion approaches and, unlike Jack Havig, Lockridge's contribution will be in the past, not in the future.

The Flavian Philosophy II

The Golden Slave, XIII.

See The Flavian Philosophy.

Flavius is at it again:

"'There are no free and unfree; we are all whirled on our way like dead leaves, from an unlikely beginning to a ludicrous end. I do not speak to you now; the sounds that come from my mouth are made by chance, flickering within the bounds of causation and natural law. Truly, we are all slaves. The sole difference lies between the noble and the ignoble.'" (p. 175)

We are whirled on our way. We are leaves with wings that can vary their course slightly but chance has decreed that some of us are motivated to change the direction of our flight whereas others are not. Of course he speaks to her. His words are intelligible and therefore are not random noises like the rustling of leaves in the wind.

CS Lewis argued that, if cerebral processes are caused, then mental processes cannot be reasoned. I discuss Lewis' arguments in section (7) here.

Poul Anderson's rich text combines philosophy, mythology and natural scenery.

Phryne swears "'Before Hades...'" (XI, p. 148)

When the freed slaves, now pirates, liberate wine casks from the captured Bona Dea, she thinks:

"This was going to be a night when Circe reigned." (p. 176)

Meanwhile:

"sundown blazed among restless clouds; the mast swayed back and forth in heaven." (ibid.)

Later, the revels are:

"...as though Pan the terrible had put to sea." (p. 178)

"...half a beast is the great god, Pan..." (See here)

Indian Summer

A passage from Poul Anderson's "Hunters of the Sky Cave" is worth quoting at length for two reasons: first, for its beauty; secondly, because it shows Dominic Flandry already displaying an intuitive grasp of the theory of history that Chunderban Desai will later expound to him in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and that he himself will have accepted by the time of A Stone In Heaven.

Speaking of a social group that he identifies as "...we aristocrats of Terra...," he says:

"'The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with any intelligence - and there are some - every one sees the Long Night coming. We've grown too wise; we've studied a little psychodynamics, or perhaps only read a lot of history, and we can see that Manuel's Empire was not a glorious resurgence. It was the Indian summer of Terran civilization. (But you've never seen Indian summer, I suppose. A pity: no planet has anything more beautiful and full of old magics.) Now even that short season is past. Autumn is far along; the nights are cold and the leaves are fallen and the last escaping birds call through a sky which has lost all colour. And yet, we who see winter coming can also see it won't be here till after our life-times...so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves.'" (Agent Of The Terran Empire, London, 1977, p. 125)

We do not expect such a speech from a space opera hero setting off to fight alien invaders. His extended metaphor mixes time frames. Imagine if seasons really were so long or human life-times so short that, literally, the winter would not come until after our life-times.

Flandry has already grasped both that the Empire represented a late stage of the decline of a civilization and that its Fall is, he thinks, inevitable. The theory says that it becomes increasingly likely with the passage of time.

Wind Hooting, Biting And Scattering

The Dog And The Wolf, XII, 1.

When the scheming and conniving Procurator Bacca says that:

"'the interests of Rome...are the interests of civilization itself...'" (p. 235):

"Wind hooted and dashed rain across roof tiles." (ibid.)

Roof tiles represent civilization. Hooting wind represents the hostile elements but also Bacca's threat to the freedom of the former Ysans.

When Gratillonius informs his people of their admittance into the "Republic" (Empire), the weather, including of course the wind, provides a pathetic fallacy:

"The market day shone bright. Clouds scudded over the blue, wavelets ran upon rain puddles, the woods tossed and distantly roared as wind bit into them, leaves broke free of yonder red-brown-yellow minglement and scrittled across fields, the last migratory birds trekked aloft with cries ringing as cold as the air, all the world seemed to be in departure. That, at least, was right, thought Gratillonius." (p. 237)

This time, the viewpoint character confirms the pathetic fallacy: the brightness of a new beginning and the departure of olden freedoms.

When he has finished speaking:

"The wind scattered his words with the dead leaves." (p. 240)

Section 2 begins:

"He shut it out when he closed the door of Cadoc's house behind him." (ibid.)

"...it..." is the wind, ever present although we can shut it out for a while.

Bluster, Chill, Whine

The Broken Sword, VII.

"On a blustery fall day, with the smell of rain in the keen air and leaves turned to gold and copper and bronze, Ketil and a few comrades rode forth to hunt." (p. 42)

They feel bluster and keenness, smell rain and see colours: three senses.

After chasing a huge noble white stag, Ketil is separated from his companions and:

"A thin chill wind whimpered through dusk." (ibid.)

Later, when Valgard seeks his now lost brother, Ketil:

"Wind whirled dead leaves through the air like ghosts hurrying down hell-road, and its whine gnawed at Valgard's nerves." (p. 44)

Wind blusters when the hunt is good, whimpers when Ketil is separated and whines when Valgard follows him. Poul Anderson's winds always follow his narratives. Will these autumnal Northern winds whirl two brothers down hell-road? Maybe but not tonight. I am going back to Stieg Larsson, then to bed.

Good night if you are in a part of the world where it is dark right now...

The Darkness And The Wind

Ok. Writing Fiction In The Past has got me back into the theme of the Wanderer in the darkness and the wind. "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" opens:

"Wind gusted out of twilight as the door opened."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), 372, p. 333.

Later:

"The door flew open.
"Dusk had deepened fast, when autumn was on hand, so that the newcomer stood in the middle of blackness. Wind flapped the edges of his blue cloak, flung a few dead leaves in past him, whistled and chilled along the room. Folk turned to see who had come, drew a sharp breath, and those who had been seated now scrambled to stand. It was the Wanderer." (p. 339)

Time Patrolman Carl Farness, who is the Wanderer, explains to Manse Everard:

"'Wodan-Mercury-Hermes is the Wanderer because he's the god of the wind.'" (1980, p. 390)

The Roman general Cerialis tells Everardus:

"'You're royal at home, descended from Mercury. Got to be, the way you bear yourself.'"
-"Star of the Sea" IN Time Patrol, 16, p. 604.

Mercury, divine super-speedster, would make an appropriate patron deity for the Time Patrol. Nicholas van Rijn tells us here that Mercury is also the god of thieves - who work in darkness.

When Carl as the Wanderer leaves his descendants for the last time:

"He strode through the shadows, out the door, into the rain and the wind."
-"The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," 372, p. 459.

Waking Up

"Terminal Quest."

Rugo wakens to sunlight, birds, wind, chattering leaves, a receding dream, dew, mist, dales, a conveniently low branch for pulling himself erect, green bushes and trees on a hillside and dead leaves underfoot. My point here is that, judging from this description, he might have been on Earth although he is not. This story published in 1951 shows us none of Poul Anderson's extraterrestrial plants or other environmental details.

However, Rugo himself, while clearly intelligent, has four feet and a large scaly head so it is established very early in the narrative that he is not human.

As to what happens next, I have reached that point in the evening - nearly midnight - when, as regular blog readers know, I am disinclined to blog any further! But we have covered some ground today. 

One Immense Convulsion

The day side of Satan is "...one immense convulsion..." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 511):

stormclouds;
explosions of lightning;
wild winds;
volcanoes;
avalanches;
floods;
waves like mountains torn to shreds;
air almost solid with rain, hail and stones;
boiled-off vapors turbulently, massively recondensing;
a storm that drives half an ocean across a continent;
winds of two or three hundred kph forming a hurricane as a back eddy or dead zone.

The hurricane catches Gahood's nineteen destroyers:

"...as a November gale catches dead leaves in the northlands of Earth." (p. 513)

The destroyers are variously:

bounced around and cast aside;
peeled open;
broken apart by solid chunks;
drowned in spume-filled air;
tossed against mountains.

Their pieces are strewn, buried, reduced to dust and atoms or locked into new rock strata and never found. The revenge of nature against technology?

Far And Near II

Several authors present a consistent picture of accessible nearby universes. Such access is either technological, like Anderson's parachronion or Lewis' chronoscope, or "magical," like Lewis' wardrobe or the grimoires used by Anderson's Holger Carlsen. However, any comprehensive multiverse incorporates both technology and magic.

Cars near Windsor Castle twist around onto a wonderful road on a Utopian Earth. (Wells)

Narnia is entered through household objects, a wardrobe and a painting. (Lewis)

Ransom and his colleagues view a parallel Earth through a chronoscope. (Lewis)

Two country inns, the Old Phoenix and the Worlds' End, open onto many universes. (Anderson and Gaiman)

Holger Carlsen experiences flame and darkness on a Danish beach in World War II, then wakes on dead leaves under a tree in a medieval forest. (Anderson)

John Rolfe puts his head through a rippling silver screen on a basement wall, Tom Christiansen finds an unpolluted condor and a caged dodo and a Gate opens to show a sabre-tooth above a dead giant sloth. (Stirling)

A window between worlds hangs unnoticed in the air beside the Oxford ring road. (Pullman)

A man on Earth Prime looks up and shouts, "Look! Up in the sky!" It's...it's nothing." (Maggin) (A man who can fly is passing overhead but is also passing between universes and has appeared only momentarily above Earth Prime where he is a fictional character.)

Iason the Eutopian hates America, a guest in the Worlds' End learns that there are many Americas and Steve Matuchek broadcasts telepathically to other Americas. (Anderson, Gaiman and again Anderson)

A wooden gate exists in both worlds and Titania's palace is:

"...as close as the harvest moon in the evening sky, as distant as a dream on wakening; near as a rainbow, and so remote you could walk for ever and never reach it...not far."
-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic III: The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 6, panel 1; p. 33, panel 4; p. 34, panel 1.

Titania also states that the distant realms do not exist but are imaginary and give the real world meaning. Apart from the Fairy Queen thus letting the cat out of the bag, these eight authors present a single scenario to which Poul Anderson contributes:

Iason visiting America, then Westfall;
Holger Carlsen in the Carolingian universe;
the Matucheks in the goetic universe with access to Heaven, Hell and Yggdrasil;
Prince Rupert of the Rhine in the Shakespearean universe;
Valeria Matuchek meeting Holger, Rupert and others in the Old Phoenix.