Andersonian Themes and Tropes, by Sean M. Brooks

Dr. Paul Shackley's "Poul Anderson Appreciation Blog" focuses on the works of Poul Anderson.  And he has also discussed other writers whose own works he believes are appropriately compared to those of Anderson.  One of these writers is S.M. Stirling, whom Dr. Shackley rightly considers a worthy colleague and successor of Poul Anderson.  Mr. Stirling has sometimes left his own comments in the blog.  On January 30, 2016, in the combox for Dr. Shackley's "Wealth and Labor" piece, Stirling wrote: "It's pretty safe to assume themes and tropes from Poul's work carry over into mine--he was an inspiration, and we corresponded and occasionally visited for many years."

I have more than once found very Andersonian echoes, allusions, themes, tropes, and homages to Poul Anderson in Stirling's own works.  I felt the wish to point out some of these "echoes" myself.  For example,  one theme or trope to be found in both writers works is how they agreed all organized societies need to have SOME signs of respect or ceremonial for their leaders or states.  In Chapter 7 of Poul Anderson's novel THERE WILL BE TIME (Nelson-Doubleday: 1972, page 63) Caleb Wallis, Sachem of the Eyrie, said: "I am the founder and master of this nation.  We must have discipline, forms of respect.  I'm called 'sir.' "  Another example can be found in Chapter 7 of THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN (Nelson-Doubleday: 1973, page 54) after Tatiana Thane showed resentment at the idea of the planet Aeneas reestablishing its loyalty to the Terran Empire Commissioner Desai said: "The loyalty I speak of does not involve more than a few outward tokens of respect for the throne, as mere essential symbols.  It is loyalty to the Empire--above all, to its Pax, in an age when spacefleets can incinerate whole worlds and when the mutiny in fact took thousands of lives--it is that I mean, my lady.  It is that I am here about..."

Echoes and allusions of this Andersonian respect for due and proper ceremony can be found in Stirling's novel CONQUISTADOR (Roc: March 2004, pages 363 and 364), in Chapter Fourteen.  The Founder of the Commonwealth of New Virginia, John Rolfe VI, was formally greeted like this: "Adrienne stepped forward first, bowing low, taking his outstretched left hand in hers, and kissing it."  Then she said, in Italian: "Baciamo le mani."  Both Piet Botha and Roy Tully (with a slight shrug to Tom Christiansen by the latter) repeated the ceremony.  Tom felt embarassed and foolish, but he too performed the ritual.  The Chairman Emeritus, noticing Tom's discomfort said: "In any organized society there must be forms, gestures of respect. I am founder and master of this nation.  My fellow Virginian Washington followed a similar policy of emphasizing formal etiquette during his presidency, for much the same reason; I've often found his solutions useful when an analogous problem came up."  Notice how "I am founder and master of this nation" is nearly a word for word quote from THERE WILL BE TIME.  To say nothing of how close Stirling's "gestures of respect" is to Anderson's "forms of respect"!

In my letter of January 21, 1995 to Poul Anderson I discussed how the Later Roman Empire, in both West and East, developed increasingly elaborate and seemingly exaggerated gestures of respect for the Emperors. To such an extent that it seemed to me the Romans, even after they became Christians, gave their sovereigns virtually divine honors.  This disturbed me until I came across these texts in Thomas Hobbes LEVIATHAN (Collier Books: 1973), Chapter 45, on page 467: "The worship we exhibit for those we esteem to be but men, as to kings, and men in authority, is civil worship; but the worship we exhibit to that which we think to be God, whatsoever the words, ceremonies, gestures or other actions be, is divine worship.  To fall prostrate before a king, in him that thinks him but a man, is but civil worship: and he that putteth off his hat in the church, for this cause, that he thinketh it the house of God, worshippeth with divine worship."  And on page 469, in the same Chapter 45, I read: "To be uncovered, before a man of power and authority, before the throne of a prince, or in other such places as he ordaineth to that purpose in his absence, is to worship that man, or prince with civil worship; as being a sign, not of honouring the stool or place, but the person; and is not idolatry."

I then became convinced that the seemingly exaggerated respect shown by the Romans to their Emperors (or the New Virginians to their Chairmen) were merely gestures of respect meant to show patriotic loyalty to them. Which meant I could no longer scorn such rituals as the proskynesis or the kowtow.  In his reply letter of January 28, 1995, Anderson wrote: "On the matter of elaborate gestures of submission to royalty and the like, I suspect that, while the extreme forms of the late West Roman and the Byzantine Empires were theoretically just gestures of respect, in fact they reflected an attitude derived from the ancient Orient.  The distinction between a king or emperor who was a god and one who was God's anointed got somewhat blurred.  There was something supernatural about a crowned head--which didn't prevent some rather murderous changes of personnel!  I think that in our own time we have seen the same basic psychology at work in the--from your viewpoint or mine--obscene degree of adulation accorded Hitler and Stalin, even though in those cases all connection to the divine was disavowed."  The even more grotesque adulation shown to Mao Tse-tung, during his misrule of China, also comes to mind.

However theoretically unobjectionable the proskynesis or kowtow might be, such ceremonies still caused problems when ambassadors from foreign nations refused to perform them to the Emperor of China .  As Anderson wrote, from the same letter cited above: "It's a nice question whether the British ambassador to China in the 19th century did right when he refused to kowtow to the Emperor.  On the one hand, he definitely compromised his mission; on the other hand, as Queen Victoria's representative he was not going to admit, even symbolically, that any other monarch was superior to her.  If nothing else, that could have set an awkward precedent."

Poul Anderson then ended by saying he had no personal objection to such ceremonial gestures: "As a private citizen, I don't face such problems, and would in general go along with whatever forms and titles, such as "your Majesty" are customary.  Partly that's a matter of courtesy, partly respect for the office, especially within one's own country."  In the last part of that sentence Anderson was about to discuss the propriety of showing customary respect for Members of the U.S. Congress.

It was interesting to see a clear example from two of Poul Anderson's books, THERE WILL BE TIME and THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, of "themes and tropes" carrying over to Stirling's  CONQUISTADOR.  I think this would have happened only if Stirling had agreed with Anderson on the desirability, even necessity, of a society's leaders being accorded some ceremonial respect and deference.  To again quote Anderson's letter of January 28, 1995: "Symbolism IS important.  It may act subtly, but it often has very practical consequences."  That is, I argue the ceremonial accorded a nation's leaders will reflect how that society regards its rulers and how power should be used.  I would even suggest that ceremonial SOFTENS the hard, sharp edges of the state's power, by helping to make sure, at least sometimes, that power is used only in  accordance with fixed laws, rules, and customs.

The Imperial Gardener by Sean M Brooks

This revision of an earlier article was published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on Monday 3 March 2014.

This note focuses on one aspect of Poul Anderson's Terran Empire stories usually passed over quite quickly by commentators, Josip III.  The twenty years reign of this Emperor was crucial because this period saw the Empire reaching the end of its Principate phase.

ENSIGN FLANDRY is set three years before Emperor Georgios, the father of then Crown Prince Josip, died.  Chapter 1 of that book, the only time in the Flandry stories that we see him in person, shows Josip as weak, self indulgent, homosexual, and mentioned as having a notoriously short memory. The best summing up we have of Josip's character is from Admiral Kheraskov's briefing of Dominic Flandry in Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS.

"Three years, now, since poor old Emperor Georgios died and Josip III succeeded. Everybody knows what Josip is: too weak and stupid for his viciousness to be highly effective.  We all assumed the Dowager Empress will keep him on a reasonably short leash while she lives.  And he won't outlast her by much, the way he treats his organism.  And he won't have children--not him!  And the Policy Board, the General Staff, the civil service, the officers corps, the Solar and extra-Solar aristocracies...they hold more crooks and incompetents than they did in former days, but we have a few good ones left, a few...

"I've told you nothing new, have I?"  Flandry barely had time to shake his head. Kheraskov kept on prowling and talking.  "I'm sure you made the same quiet evaluation as most informed citizens.  The Empire is so huge that no one individual can do critical damage, no matter if he's theoretically all powerful.  Whatever harm came from Josip would almost certainly be confined to a relative handful of courtiers, politicians, plutocrats, and their sort, concentrated on and around Terra--no great loss.  We've survived other bad Emperors."

The plot of THE REBEL WORLDS revolves around how Flandry neutralized a danger to the Empire from a favorite of Josip who was not an ordinary courtier or politician.  And how Flandry then thwarted a fleet admiral deliberately goaded into rebellion by that favorite.

Here I wish to pause and briefly comment on the Dowager Empress and widow of Emperor Georgios mentioned by Admiral Kheraskov in the text I quoted from THE REBEL WORLDS.  Plainly, this lady was a woman of some force and strength of character if she was able to restrain Josip.  And, of course, Josip would at least sometimes heed the wishes and advice of his own mother (who was probably one of the few persons who could talk firmly in a no nonsense way to him).  At least while Aaron Snelund, the chief villain of THE REBEL WORLDS, was not at court to counteract her influence.

Josip III was a bad, weak, and irresponsible Emperor.  One example of that last quality being his refusal to do his dynastic duty of assuring the succession by marrying and begetting children.  As Flandry told Miriam Abrams in Chapter VI of A STONE IN HEAVEN: "Once as a young fellow I found myself supporting the abominable Josip against McCormac--Remember McCormac's Rebellion?  He was infinitely the better man.  Anybody would have been.  But Josip was the legitimate Emperor and legitimacy is the root and branch of government.  How else, in spite of the cruelties and extortions and ghastly mistakes it's bound to perpetrate--how else, by what right, can it command loyalty?  If it is not the servant of Law, then it is nothing but a temporary convenience at best.  At worse, it's raw force."

Josip was thus, despite his vices and flaws, supported by men like Flandry due to the urgent need to uphold Law and legitimacy.  However, in one or two other texts I found hints of something better than degeneracy and incompetence in Josip.

WE CLAIM  THESE STARS! is set late in Josip's reign, during the Syrax crisis.  In this confrontation with Merseia the Empire was forced to concentrate so much of the Navy at the Syrax cluster that Merseia was able to use its Ardazirho clients to attack Terra at another frontier.  E.g., the Ardazirho seized the border colony planet Vixen.  While discussing the Syrax/Vixen crisis with Flandry, Admiral Fenross said of the fleet commander sent to Vixen (in Chapter VI): "The Emperor himself gave Admiral Walton what amounts to carte blanche."  Which made Flandry think: "It must have been one of His Majesty's off days, decided Flandry.  Actually doing the sensible thing."  Meaning there were times when Josip had the wit to make the right decision.

Next, also in Chapter VI of WE CLAIM THESE STARS!, Fenross mentioned how the Vixenite who brought the news of the colony's seizure by Ardazir asked to meet the Emperor.  Flandry sardonically said: "And didn't get it," foretold Flandry.  "His Majesty is much too busy gardening to waste time on a mere commoner representing a mere planet."  Fenross expressed surprise by asking "Gardening?," Flandry replied ironically, "I'm told His Majesty cultivates beautiful pansies."

When I finally paid attention to this bit of dialogue my thought was that if an Emperor as bad as Josip had enough appreciation of beauty to grow his own flowers, then there was some good in him.

However, I then wondered what Flandry had meant by "pansies."  THE RANDOM HOUSE HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1973) had this as the third definition for the word "pansy": "3. Slang. a. a male homosexual."  If that was what Flandry meant, it explains why Fenross reacted so nervously to Flandry's comment: "Fenross gulped and said in great haste..."  It would also be an example of some slang words retaining their meanings over a millennium from now.

It can thus be seen how "The Imperial Gardener" is an ironic title for this essay.  I admire as well the technical skill shown by Anderson in deftly inserting works set early in Flandry's life (such as THE REBEL WORLDS, 1969) into a series including works placed later in his life (one example being WE CLAIM THESE STARS, 1959).

I absolutely agree with what Flandry said in Chapter VI of A STONE IN HEAVEN about how "legitimacy is the root and branch of government." Lacking that, any government is likely to be nothing but "raw force."  And this applies to all governments, whatever their forms may be.  To preserve and defend legitimacy, it may well be necessary to support rulers a person privately despises.  Many examples from history could be listed here of weak, foolish, and contemptible leaders from Chinese, Roman, Byzantine, French, British, and American history.  Leaders it was better to accept if they held power legitimately.

Poul Anderson: contributor articles

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

The Poul Anderson: contributor articles blog now exists. To get this new blog off the ground, we have copied thirteen articles, one of them in both an original and a revised version, from earlier posts on Poul Anderson Appreciation.

The thirteen articles have in common that they are not written by me. They also have in common that all are written by one contributor, Sean M Brooks. However, the concept of the new blog is that any reader or fan of Poul Anderson is invited to email articles, essays or even brief remarks to be posted on it. Opinions contradicting mine are not merely tolerated but positively encouraged.

Anderson fans will by now be reading the new Anderson-themed anthology, Multiverse, and will be doing so before I do. Here is an excellent opportunity for new input from new contributors on new material that is also directly relevant to what this blog has been about all along - exploring the imaginary universes of Poul Anderson.