I See the Stars at Bloody Warrs in the Wounded Welkin Weeping

Teresa Nielsen Hayden writes about Poul Anderson:

Making Light: Loss of suspension: ...that terrible moment when you see too far into the emotional strategies of a work of fiction, and it falls dead for you. There's no retrieving it. That moment of insight recolors all your previous readings, so that what was once fascinating is now just painful.

I've only ever seen one instance where it was salvaged. When I was a kid, I happily read Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry stories. When I got older they turned to ashes in my mouth,¹ around the time I noticed what a shallow manipulative SOB Flandry is, and how often his exploits are paid for by the women in his vicinity. Then, much later, Poul Anderson paid off the series's debts in full with the stark and (in my opinion) underrated A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows.

I was long past being a kid by then, certainly past believing that writers have any obligation to deserve the trust we give them; so the sense of relief and reassurance I felt came as a complete surprise. It surprises me still....

I had always thought that being a shallow manipulative SOB was part of the main point of the Flandry stories. He is cynical, corrupt, shallow, decadent, self-absorbed, lecherous. Yet when the choice comes--when there is a chance to do something that will delay by a month or so the Long Night of the barbarians that will come after the fall of the cruel, unjust, murderous, rapacious Terran Empire--Flandry does find that he is a patriot, and that truly dulce et decorum pro patria mori. The decadent sybarite stands up like Horatius at the Gate, grabs his spear to face impossible odds, and declaims:

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods...?"

For me, the frustrating narrative hole was always Flandry's insufficient motivation: Why is this decadent sybarite also Horatius at the Gate? (Let's not ask why Macaulay is impelled to write the poems that Romans would have written had the Romans been illiterate Scots.)

So for me, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows did not lift any burden, but seemed more like a bizarre hall of mirrors. Dominic Flandry falling in True Love? The lifetime appreciator of High Culture and defender of the possibility of civilization turning into the Greatest Vandal of All Time? Flandry in this book is a different man from the Flandry in earlier books. It's not good to write a story in which a new character inhabits the skin and bears the name of an old one.

And what possible reason--save that of transparent plot device to set up a cruel dilemma--could Flandry's son ever have had to learn the location of Aycharaych's homeworld? Not to mention the disproportion of the response: to answer an uncovered espionage-and-assassination plot with large cross-border destructive raids by battlefleets is a dangerous climbing of the ladder of escalation. It is not something that the Roidhunate of Merseia would ever have taken lying down.

The jerky clockwork was, to me at least, much more visible and the suspension of disbelief much less possible in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows than in the other Flandry stories.

Yet more evidence that reading is something that takes place between the ears. Your mileage can and will vary widely...

By contrast, Tau Zero. Now there is a science-fiction novel!

---

¹They turned to ashes in my mouth too, but for very different reasons. For me, it was the cheap Cold War polemics. Flandry is fighting to delay the victory of the barbarians--to keep the star-spanning civilization alive a little longer, so that life can be less nasty, brutish, and short. Enter the Roidhunate of Merseia, a young expanding civilization and species confident in itself: strong and aggressive. Who better to pass the torch too? Who better to hold back the Long Night? Yes, the Roidhunate has enormous flaws. But are they worse than the flaws of the Terran Empire?

That's not how Poul Anderson plays it. He plays it like this: Merseia = Russia. "Peaceful coexistence" is impossible. Those who say that Brezhnev is not Stalin = deluded fools. Those who propose detente with Merseia or even a watchful peace rather that recognizing that permanent, total war has already begun = Commie-loving unpatriotic American liberals like Henry Kissinger.

Thus what starts as a meditation on variations on themes from the Age of Septimius Severus turns into a John Birch Society tract. It simply does not fit. If the major theme is that defending the Bad is necessary to hold back the Worst, you cannot suddenly intrude American Angels vs. Russian Commie Devils without causing... laughter.

Yet more evidence that reading is something that takes place between the ears...

Comments

[robert the red]

Some of Poul Anderson's work illustrates the destructive cultural effect that the long Cold War had on American life (as all our wars have had and are having now). But some of his stuff (Tau Zero, Goat Song, Kyrie) sticks in my mind for a long time now.

Alas, the cultural destruction wrought by the Cold War is being revived and amplified in the current GWOT. I guess we live in interesting times, curse it.

[Brian]

On a tangent -- I just reread The Talented Mr. Ripley, then read the next couple of Highsmith's Ripley novels. There's not much that the later Ripley shares with the character in the first novel besides a name. The later novels wouldn't have lost anything by changing that name.

I'm trying to think of other examples of novels only nominally sharing characters. Anybody have suggestions?

[Jonathan Goldberg]

"He is cynical, corrupt, shallow, decadent, self-absorbed, lecherous."

Read Flashman. You'll love it.

[Matt Austern]

That didn't bother me quite as much, mostly because I didn't see Merseia as the Soviet Union but as Persia. I agree it would make no sense at all for someone who thought he was delying the end of civilization to see Merseia as a mortal enemy, but that's what happened in real life. People like Flandry and Cohen were unable to see a non-human empire as a worthy successor just as, in real life, the Roman empire saw Persia as just another bunch of barbarians.

I'm sure Anderson intended Merseia to stand in for Persia, and I'm sure you're right that at other times he intended it to stand in for the Soviet Union. Having it stand for both things, though, supports a reading that I'm sure he didn't intend. The centuries of hot and cold wars between Rome and Persia, after all, were insane. You could make a pretty good case that this rivalry destroyed both of those ancient superpowers. What does this suggest about the more recent superpower rivalry?

[Martin]

I remember having some serious problems with Tau Zero. (I read it several decades ago so my memory of the book and my reactions is fuzzy and unreliable.) As I recall, the hero was the security guy on the space ship. As each new crisis was encountered, the other crew members (trained scientists, engineers, etc.) emotionally fell apart, but the hero rallied the crew. I therefore felt that the book was flirting dangerously with the view that only military types (or the equivalent) are REAL MEN. However, I also, at first, thought that this could be justified on the theory that a person with military training and experience might, in fact, be better at promptly keeping his head in a crisis.

However, toward the end of book, the hero makes a crucial technical suggestions that the scientists, astro-navigators, etc. on the crew didn't think of. I felt that this took things over the line -- implying that the real man military guy was superior to the intellectuals in all respects, even on their general relativistic home turf. This left a bad taste in my mouth. This is particularly true since the message necessarily came across as a general ideological or emotional statement, and not simply a story incident, in light of the somewhat stylized nature of the characterization (not bad by SF standards but not George Eliot) and the inherently allegorical overtones of the stituation in the book.

(There's a certain May Sue element, as well. Not as to Anderson's motivations, but in the need to have the hero be the best at everything.)

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden]

Good points. I think I was younger than you were when I first read the Flandry series. Since I wasn't familiar with the varieties of depravity signified by his on-screen behavior, I never thought he could be all that bad. Besides, he worked too hard at being decadent, and was too straightforwardly and energetically willing to do the necessary work.

Writers who aren't naturally depraved don't always get the tone right.

[Brad DeLong]

I interpreted the fact that _Tau Zero's_ hero was the security guy as a way of making all the, "As you know, Bob..." passages less painful: he didn't know much about relativity, and had to learn it...

[Bruce Moomaw]

Sandra Miesel wrote that Anderson certainly intended Terra vs. Merseia as an analog of Rome vs. Persia. This is made a virtual certainty by his firm belief in cyclical human history -- in which humanity, again and again, supposedly laboriously constructs a relatively civilized and democratic society out of barbarism only to have it turn corrupt through accumulation of governmental power by the rich and the degeneration of genuine free-market capitalism into crony capitalism, but then keeps the society staggering along for a while longer by turning it into an authoritarian state before it finally collapses completely, usually as a result of conflict with an outside state. (See Nicholas van Rijn's lecture at the very end of "Mirkheim"; like a lot of Anderson's passages, it's irksomely preachy, but it certainly presents his ideas clearly.)

The thing that really struck me as unbelievable about "Ghosts and Shadows" was Flandry's final decision to destroy Chereion simply on the grounds that "real people's lives are at stake" -- without ever thinking of the obvious fact that the tremendous repository of knowledge in Chereion would unquestionably save and prolong the lives of billions of "real people" throughout later history, and without Aychyaraych bothering to mention that little fact to him. In such a situation, Flandry might very well have succumbed to the understandable temptation to save the lives of people he actually knew at the expense of later generations (shades of Anakin Skywalker!) -- but that would not remotely have made his decision moral, as Anderson seems to expect us to think it is. Nor is it plausible that Aychyaraych did not foresee the possibility of such a destructive strike and make advance provisions (which he had decades to carry out) to try to preserve backup copies of Chereion's most important knowledge for later handover to whatever civilization seemed most worthy of them (and Aychyaraych makes it clear that he considered that to be the Terran Empire, warts and all).

[Roger Albin]

As one who read virtually all of Anderson's considerable output, I have to agree with both Nielsen Hayden and DeLong. Anderson was an enjoyable writer, but not a gifted one and character development was not his strong point. To be fair, he had to write a lot to make a decent living, meaning less time for revision and relatively little growth as a writer over the course of his career. I think Flandry was supposed to be a sort of thwarted romantic but Anderson never really made his character entirely creditable. For the intellectually oriented teenage boys who probably made up much of the audience for these books, he was irresistable. Hayden Nielsen mentions the role of women in these stories, which is crucial. The women, who often suffer greatly, are a great example of pure wish fulfillment for his audience. The Flandry stories, like some of his other work, like the entertaining The Star Fox, is clearly a transfer of the Cold War to the distant future. On one level this was a contemporary slant that clearly resonated with his audience, on the other hand, its a rather mechanical way to construct a future history and story plots. Anderson was quite conservative politically but also rather conflicted about modern conservatism. Some of his work like the Van Rijn/Falkayn stories were intended to be a celebration of unfettered capitalism. On the other hand, he was quite aware of the limitations of unregulated capitalism as seen in his ingenious story Inside Straight. Like many European conservatives, his distinctly mixed feelings about capitalism/libertarianism lead to a longing for an 'organic' society with elements of feudalism and rather odd notions about human history.

[Bruce Moomaw]

The fundamental thing to keep in mind about Anderson is that he was a romantic, melancholy pessimist. My God, was he pessimistic -- without being smugly sadistic. And this convincing portrayal of the fundamental darkness of the world (along with his staggering erudition) is exactly what I have always liked and fouind convincing in his work, as compared to the optimistic, brassily self-confident, shallow Heinlein. (Although I have noticed some exceptions to this in early Heinlein. Consider, for instance, "By His Bootstraps", which as Silverberg says is surely the spookiest, most awe-inspiring time travel story ever -- and, in fact, the only one I've ever seen that properly portrays how spooky and awe-inspiring time travel and its implications would be if it was really possible.)

[Dwight Cramer]

Who was Poul Anderson, anyway? Does anybody know anything about him?

And if people are interested in that kind of thing--here's my trade bait--find yourself a copy of Frederick Pohl's The Way the Future Was. A great memoir of science fiction in the middle of the last century.

[Roger Albin]

Bruce, I have to disagree about the "staggering erudition." Anderson read widely but not deeply. Take for example the Polesotechnic League stories with their libertarian heroes. These were supposedly inspired by the pioneering capitalist entrepeneurs of early modern Europe and specifically by a highly romanticized view of Elizabethan Britain. Yet Anderson misses a number of the crucial features of this period and the explorer-entrepeneurs. The expansion of European commerce and exploration during this period is a good example of state sponsored capitalism. For a very good discussion of this issue see Kenneth Pomeranz's excellent book The Great Divergence. While the Pomeranz book is quite recent, the essential features of international trade and exploration in the early modern period were well known in the 1950s. The great Elizabethan explorers were also by any reasonable standard, intermittant pirates and occasional slavers. His romanticization of feudalism is another good example of his ignorance of historical realities. I enjoyed reading Anderson, still own many of his books, and recommended some of his books to my sons, but his knowledge of real human history was limited and ideologically blinkered.

[Matt Austern]

I always thought the Polesotechnic League was supposed to have been inspired by the Hanseatic League.

Not that this takes away from your point. An alliance of medieval trading cities has almost nothing in common with what Anderson wrote.

[Jonathan Goldberg]

I have very mixed feelings about Anderson. He seems to have undergone a flip from one extreme politically to the other. In his early days he was a flaming liberal, writing stories like those about "The UNMan," a cloned hero doing battle for the United Nations against the forces of ranchavist nationalism. See also the short story "Marius."

Later, of course, he became a flaming conservative. One might say some things never change.

This is snarkier than justified, because he undeniably wrote some good stories. But I ended up abandoning him because I couldn't stand being preached at. The Star Fox, mentioned above, was one of the things that pushed me over the edge.

My nominations for good ones would include "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and Three Hearts and Three Lions. I also got a kick out of at least the title of "The Kreutzer Sonata." And I see that there is now a FIFTH work by that title. I suppose I'll have to read it out of sheer curiosity.

One final thought about the Polesotechnic League stories. It seems clear from the early ones that Anderson hoped to create an in-depth portrait of what something like that might look like in an interstellar age; however, he couldn't bring it off. It's hard to blame him for that; no one else really has either. Perhaps Cordwainer Smith came closest.

[John]

Merseia, as several posters above point out is intended to be Persia, and the Empire the dying embers of Rome.

Whilst it is true Anderson was firmly in the 'right wing' camp in the Cold War (I don't know what his take was on Vietnam) Anderson was also a classic Scandinavian author-- those Minnesota roots back to Norway ran deep.

So there is a touch of Ibsenesque tragedy in everything Anderson wrote, and he grew more pessimistic as time went on.

And yet he still reads well. The Jungian duality of Flandry makes him an interesting character: the dissolute rogue who nevertheless fights for a dying ideal.

There is a touch of John Le Carre in this: his mortal enemy, Aycharach, is also a far more admirable person than most of Flandry's allies.

The entire Polesotechnic/Empire series remains as gripping space opera for me as when I first read it as one of those techie kids 30 years ago. I wince at the writing style now, but the breadth of the ideas, the gripping plots and the fundamental idea of essentially doomed characters still trying to do what is right, in a universe that conspires against them, is still very attractive.

That moral greyness (on one level), that sense of inevitable historical forces, reminds me of Dylan Thomas 'Go not softly into the stillness of the night/ but rage, rage against the dying of the light'.

The characters are trapped in an almost Sartrean situation of needing to assert their integrity against forces that will grind them down and thwart their aims. There is something very existentialist going on here-- the assertion of integrity in impossible situations. These are flawed characters, but they try to do the right thing nonetheless-- it's something John Le Carre captures with Smiley very well.

Read People of the Wind (my favourite of that cycle of novels) for that at its best. The good guys win, by trickery, and at the cost of many good lives.

By contrast, Heinlein and Clarke are often techno optimists, and smug.

[Bruce Moomaw]

Yes, Anderson could sometimes be preachy -- and he had an annoying penchant for trying to do imitations of the Elder Edda's style that ended up sounding simply pompous. But I stand by my statement that -- compared to virtually any other SF writer I can name, except maybe C.M. Kornbluth -- his total level of both scientific and historical erudition was awesome.

As for his politics: it was distinctly more complex than the above comments make out -- and the single thing that always attracted me most to him even when I was uneasy about his politics was his consistent tendency NOT to demonize his opponents. Even during his most conservative period -- roughly 1960-90 -- I can think of at least three of his fictional characters who were not just socialist but flat-out dictatorial pro-Soviet or Maoist Communists, who are nevertheless portrayed as firmly well-intentioned. (See "The Byworlder, "A Chapter of Revelation", and "The Devil's Game".) Even Cynbe ru Taren in "The Star Fox" is to a great extent a sympathetic character. (And, as Sandra Miesel pointed out, what motivates his society of Alerion in its obsession to destroy the Earth is not "rational" Communistic of fascist totalitarianism, but a type of socially rooted religious fanaticism -- which looks a lot more convincing given what we are now confronting.)

Anderson saw the world as a horribly difficult place for human beings to live in -- and as one in which honest, sometimes very small and subtle mistakes very regularly have horrible consequences. Anyone with that degree of intellectual ecumenicalism is very hard to regard as a simple-minded ideologue -- and I've read an enormous amount of his work over the last 35 years. (And let me add that I have never been able to view Cordwainer Smith's strange nursery-rhyme future -- in which most adult humans are not only treated as children by their ruling lords, but actually DO think and talk like children -- as remotely convincing, or as anything but a reflection of its author's personal weirdness.)

[Bruce Moomaw]

(1) Anderson was extremely hawkish on Vietnam, right to the end of his life. I regard it as one of his weakest points politically.

(2) Clarke (who first launched me on my SF addiction back in 1964) is very often alarmingly shallow and ridiculously optimistic, but I never see Heinlein's annoying smugness in him. (By the way, absolutely all of Clarke's good SF is from the 1950-63 period.)

[Roger Albin]

Cordwainer Smith was one of the few really talented writers to work in the science fiction genre. In his day job, Smith (PAM Linebarger) was a well known expert on China and his work draws from traditions in Chinese literature. He was not attempting to write a future history in the sense that Anderson was any more than Kafka's The Trial is about a real juidicial proceeding. His work is certainly a bit outre for most science fiction fans but I predict that he will eventually be discovered by the mainstream and be regarded as a minor but significant American writer. If HP Lovecraft can make it into The Library of America, why not Smith, who was a more talented and original stylist.

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden]

It wasn't just Poul Anderson's politics that were more complicated than he's commonly given credit for -- and by the way, that flaming liberal never entirely went away. Granted, he was fond of quoting Heinlein's bit about how SF writers are in competition for the readers' beer money. I've always been surprised by the number of reviewers who took that as his definitive aesthetic statement, and failed to notice that this self-proclaimed commercial writer was turning out everything from "Uncleftish Beholdings" to at least one Noh play.

It's easier to seem like an artist when your primary engagement is with literature itself. Poul Anderson's writing was also engaged with history and the physical universe. He wasn't always successful with it, but he always gave it an honest fight.

[Brad DeLong]

I do like Poul Anderson a lot. But I object to the intrusion of scenes like this into a series that is a meditation on fighting to hold back the Long Night.

No Roman envoy ever spoke such to a Persian ambassador:

"Oh, come off it, chum! No Merseian has a talent for pious wormwords. He only sounds silly when he tries. As far as you're concerned vis-a-vis us, diplomacy is only a continuation of war by other means." Flandry tossed off his drink and poured a refill.

"Many Terrans disagree," Tachwyr said slowly.

"My species also has more talent than yours for wishful thinking," Flandry admitted....

The heavy features flushed olive-green. "Do you imply our attempt--not at final disengagement, granted, but at practical measures of mutual benefit--do you imply it is either idiotic or else false."

Flandry sighed. "You disappoint me, Tachwyr. I do believe you've grown stuffy in your middle age. Instead of continuing the charade, why not ring up your Chereionite and invite him to join us?..."

Poul Anderson, _A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows_, p. 101.

John. Birch. Society.

[Steven Rogers]

I agree that no Roman Envoy ever spoke that way to a Persian Ambasador, but Flandry and Tachwyr were not envoys during the scene you quote. They were Intelligence Officers with a *great deal* of personal and professional history with each other, holding an informal conversation during a social function. I can easily picture a pair of Persian and Roman spymasters holding such a conversation