************************************************** Chapter 7: Pundit Nero By: Brett Coster Also: WT Goodall and Gord Sellar ************************************************* Title: "Dennis had already realized that Hoss'k was the type of intellectual who'd dismiss an urgent and unstoppable change in his society, blithely ignoring the forces that pulled all about him. His kind always fiddled while Rome burned, all the while explaining away the ashes with their own brand of logic." (pg. 126 my edition, 18 paragraphs into part 3 of this chapter.) Hoss'k is a Pundit, and he's like Nero as compared above. (Nero, apocryphally at least, fiddled while Rome burned. Fiddled as in played music. That wouldn't be on a violin btw, they didn't exist yet... -Gord Sellar Pundit Nero is also a play on Pandit Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, but I can'tsee any significance there. As ever, I could be wrong. -Brett Coster I don't know enough about Nehru to tie him into it too well, though I know he sometimes *did* ignore things for the sake of his theory of the world -- like expecting "developing world solidarity" from China (something Gautam has discussed here, I think). But I think the Nehru reference is less crucial than the Nero. -Gord Sellar The black expert? -Brett Coster Negr0 != Nero. the roots of "Negro" are Latin: "niger" or "nigri", meaning black. Interestingly, we get it in English from the Spanish and the Portugese, not the French as I imagined. Kinda maybe makes sense. Hmmmm. [Where is seems to have been rejected in the 50s by Anglo blacks writing (at least as far as I've read, could be wrong... Langston Hughes seems uncomfortable with the word by the 40s and seemed t prefer "black" to "Negro" by then...), the movement "Negritude" was apparently not offensive but actually slightly confrontational and celebratory (perhaps also reclamatory) as a French term for "blackness" used by the poet/political Aime Cesaire as late as the mid-fifties. For the SF connection: Cesaire's _Cahier d'un retour d'un pays natal_ is the text from which Greg Egan cribs his futuristic African poet's preface in _Distress_ -- all the more interesting since Cesaire was talking about Martinique, but himself was calling for pan-Africanism. :) -Gord Sellar Analysis: Now, Pundit Rouge as a title I could understand - the Deacon Hoss'k pontificates during this chapter about the rightness of things in his world, as seen by someone who is naturally among the upper levels of the society (One of the great lines in scifi is that of Cordelia Naismith, that "being a member of an aristocracy is easy for an egalitarian, so long as one is part of that aristocracy) Hoss'k also identifies himself as the person who destroyed the zievatron and the captor of Linnora. His theory on the life essences used in making, and that in Dennis' society they must have a ruthless attitude to the lower forms of life - a palpable hit, in many ways - for them to be used so comprehensively in Dennis' equipment and even in his clothes. This has an effect neither he nor Dennis anticipated: a distinct cooling of feeling on Linnora's part toward the Wizard. This concept of life essence being expended in making seems to be a general one. The L'Toff are renowned for it. It seems to involve more than simply spending time and skill in the making, so that the item made is already fit for purpose when it BEGINS its practice. Nowhere explained further (that I can recall) a life force and reduction in lifespan results from the quality of making performed by the L'Toff. I hope someone can explain what this idea means. Because elsewhere in the practice world, the expenditure of time and energy in practicing is just as dramatic a shortener of life as the making could be. "Well, it's because the effects of L'Toff Practice can be rendered permanent, by the expenditure of some life force. A very Advanced Dungeons & Dragons effect, btw: lose one hit point to make the spell permanent or somehting like that, or each wish spell costs the Mage a hit point. [read "life point" and you'll get the gist.] This is described about 3 pages before the end of part 3, on pg 131 of my edition." - Gord Sellar Dennis' second awakening in imprisonment is a a lovely bit of scene setting. The two guards practicing the dungeon is another touch, worthy of Elvira herself. It's not so much the walls being able to speak but having ears and listening. Arth is becoming more prominent and, I think, in some ways a prototype of Fiben Bolger in Uplift War. Essentially the offsider who never quite fully knows what his "master" is up to and who keeps looking on sardonically, always accepting that if someone's going to do the dirty work it's him. If you like, as Gromit is to Wallace. Dennis' hand gestures to Lord Hern are directly repeated, BTW, by Fiben in Uplift War to the Gubru guards as he drags his motorless agrav truck into Port Helenia. "Hey, part 7 of this chapter's from Linnora's POV! Is that the first time we're clearly out of Denni's close-range? It's interesting how Brin uses limited omniscience focusing on one character mainly in non-Uplift books (except Sundiver where he DOES use 3rd person limited omniscience, and except Earth which is 3rd person limited omniscience with a TON of characters). It's interesting the freedom he has here to shift from POV to POV, but that he stays with Dennis so much. This is how Postman and Glory Season work too, where _Earth_ and _Startide_ (& the other Uplift books I think) use a 3rd person limited omniscience that jumps between characters as a rule, not an exception." - Gord Sellar (The omniscience is "limited" because sometimes thoughts can be withheld by a character, and because things an omniscience narrator would know are withheld from the reader as much as from the character. It's also limited when it uses a "main character" as its focus, as opposed to examining the minds and thoughts of several at a single go...) -Gord Sellar "Interesting party/potlach, and interesting commentary on the "industrial revolution" being the distillery. We're clearly in comedy mode still, where Kremer's stupidity and evil are interlocked. He settles for booze when he could demand more needlers? Hmmm. But at least Hoss'k is shown to not be *quite* so stupid as Dennis first thought. For a caveman, anyway." - Gord Sellar "The interesting anti-romanticist, anti-fantasy in this chapter comes up iin part 9 (it's occurred before, but I never got a chance to comment): Dennis compares his own lack of willingness to die for Linnora's virginity to the characters in other works of literature: "Most of Shakespeare's characters were poetic idiots." Of course, this is also Brin commenting about his character, who is NOT one, and about fiction and romanticization, which is funny . . . even as he romanticizes the relationship in the standard fantasy adventure way, he time after time tries to question the way it's normally done in this kind of setting . . . yet he always comes back for more. Kinda like being jaded but still having a smidgin of poetic idiocy in one's heart nonetheless. I think Dennis is a bit of a romantic idiot too, for all his protest." - Gord Sellar [I'll (wisely?) say nothing of the possibility of poetic idiocy in the heart of El Brin himself, though! Even if sometimes Nuel seems almost like a semi-autobiographical figure for the opinionss of a certain author we've all seen energentically arguing his views (er, yeah, that's much nicer than "ranting us out") here. ;op Such speculations are almost inevitably carried way too far... suffice it to say, though, that I feel sometimes like I recognize opinions and rhetorical devices... and that Nuel is certainly Brinnish in some respects.] Notes: Oh, and can someone explain how you can dropkick a blanket? Punt it yes, but dropkick? - Brett Coster Rest Courtesy of WT Goodall: "...this place sure has been lousy since Yngvi arrived..." An obscure fannish reference. 'Yngvi was a louse' was a long-running catch-phrase/in-joke in fanzines from the 1940s. from http://fanac.org/Fannish_Reference_Works/Fancyclopedia/Fancyclopedia_I/y.htm l#Yngvi Yngvi - (de Camp) - The only thing we are told about Yngvi is that a little fellow in the Giant's prison of "The Roaring Trumpet" came to the front of his cell every hour on the hour and yelled "Yngvi is a LOUSE!" The mystery has fascinated fandom, and Yngvi turns up in all sorts of places. Frequently the statement that he is a louse is taken literally; sometimes Yngvi is confused with the little guy who didn't like him; and once it was said that Yngvi is a Type Fifteen fan. Elmer Perdue has been the leading defender of him or it, asserting by stickers and otherwise that "Yngvi is NOT a louse!" At the Denvention, Rothman made a motion to the effect that Yngvi is not a louse, but it was defeated. A motion was then passed stating that Rothman is a louse. http://fanac.org/Fannish_Reference_Works/Fancyclopedia/Fancyclopedia_I/f2.ht ml#11 "Type Fifteen fan - In a grafology article Joe Gilbert analyzed the chirografies of a number of well-known fans, and left it to the readers to guess which was which. Number 15 on the list was supposed to be a dangerous maniac that you shouldn't allow behind your back especially in a dark alley. Immediately each fan on the list of analyzees, and some others, leaped and claimed that #15 was he. Finally Gilbert said that he'd known very little about grafanalysis at the time, and his sketch of #15 was all wet; there was merely a little mental quirk in that fan. But fandom wouldn't have it so. Courtesy Bob Tucker, Cy reveals for the first time that the actual Number 15 was Joe Fortier." __________________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685 "The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of isntitutions designed to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
