The Crusty Curmudgeon

You might be a flat-earther if...

2026-01-15T21:25:00.001-05:00

I see a lot of flat-earth stuff on Facebook. I don't know how if any of it is sincere, or if most or all of it is just engagement farming or flamebait. I just know I can't look away. The amount of utter ignorance apparently on display astounds me.

It's been well understood for millennia that the earth was spherical. Simple observation proved that: ships leaving port didn't just appear to get smaller as they sailed away; they disappeared from the bottom up as though going over a hill. The shadow cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always a circle; only a sphere casts a circular shadow from all angles.

In the third century BC, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth using a couple of sticks and high-school geometry. Some of his assumptions were off (for example, the exact distance and bearing from Alexandria and Syene), but his methodology was sound. Columbus wasn't trying to prove the world was round; that was understood. The dispute was over its size, and whether Asia wa reachable by sailing west from Europe. (Obviously, it wasn't. It was fortunate for Columbus that North America was in the way. He thought the globe was much smaller.) Enlightenment intellectuals in the 18th and 19th centuries concocted the myth that the ancients believed the world to be flat, in order to portray religion as anti-reason. In reality, educated people knew the earth was a sphere. That people today will seriously entertain the notion that we live on a planar surface just goes to show how un-educated we have become.

Here are two basic proofs that the earth is spherical—one negative and one positive—that should be understandable to anyone. I'm no scientist; my science and math education is high-school level (with a year of university engineering thrown in; I dropped out). Fortunately, all you really need is a good grasp of basic geometry.

A negative proof

Fundamentally, flat-earth geography simply does not work. The majority of flat-earthers will point to an azimuthal equidistant projection such as Gleason's New Standard Map of the World, which is consistent with flat-earth claims of the earth being a disc with the North Pole at the centre and an "ice wall" around its circumference. An azimuthal projection is useful for representing accurate distances from the centre point. However, on Gleason's map, the farther south you get, the more distorted the projection gets. Southern continents like Australia get stretched in the east-west direction, and Antarctica, which is larger only than Australia if you exclude its ice shelves, becomes a massive ring around the perimeter, bigger than all the other land masses together. Two southern-hemisphere cities like Sydney, Australia and Buenos Aires, Argentina are approximately 11,800 kilometers apart, but appear practically on opposite sides of the map. Tokyo is about 18,400 km from Buenos Aires, but it appears closer than Sydney.

Different map projections are useful for certain purposes by preserving some characteristic of the Earth's geography, but no flat map can perfectly depict the geography of Earth in every respect: each one still distorts distance, bearing, direction, shape, and/or area. That's because every map is a projection of a curved surface. Only one map can accurately represent all of those characteristics. That is a globe.

Flat-earthers don't even agree on the map. Most advocate for an azimuthal projection, but some will dispute whether the earth has one pole or two, whether Antarctica is a regular continent or an "ice wall" ringing the world, and so forth. With the surveying technology available to us today, you might imagine that producing an accurate flat map of a flat surface would be easy. But it's never been done—or, as far as I know, even tried. Flat-earthism utterly fails to describe the world as we know it to be.

A positive proof

Sailors figured out very early on how to determine their latitude by measuring the altitude of certain celestial bodies, such as the sun or Polaris, the North Star. We all know that Polaris sits almost directly above the North Pole, making it appear as though the entire (northern) sky rotates around it. By sighting Polaris, measuring its altitude (angle above the horizon), a navigator could directly measure his latitude. For example, I live in Ottawa, which is at 45.4° north. If I look at Polaris at night, my sight line is at about 45 degrees to the horizon.

Consider the following locations in the Americas:

Resolute, Nunavut
Whitehorse, Yukon
Ottawa, Ontario
New Orleans, Louisiana
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Quito, Ecuador

I've chosen them because their latitudes are approximately 15-degree intervals. If they were aligned on the same line of longitude, they would be pretty evenly distributed at around 1,700 km apart.

Sightings of Polaris from a globe

To a person at the North Pole, Polaris is directly overhead: an altitude of 90°. In Resolute, he would see it at an altitude of 75°; in Whitehorse, at 60° and so forth. Quito is almost directly on the equator, so Polaris would have an altitude of 0°—directly on the horizon.¹ If you could draw those sight lines in the air from the observers to Polaris, you would discover that they are, for all practical purposes, parallel (Polaris is 450 light years from earth, so the angle of the light that reaches the North Pole and Quito differs by trillionths of a degree). Clearly our observers are all looking at the same thing.

Sightings of Polaris from a flat earth.

But if we assume the surface of the earth is flat, we have a problem. In Ottawa² I sight Polaris at a 45° altitude. But someone in New Orleans sighting at an altitude of 30° is looking right past Polaris. In fact, it's evident that these seven observers are either not looking at the same object, or they're not observing it at the correct angle, or we're mistaken about their latitude. They couldn't actually be evenly spaced; the distance between them would be greater the farther south we went—and division by zero would put Quito an infinite distance away from the North Pole!

Even more, if the altitude of Polaris in Ottawa is 45°, then Polaris, the North Pole, and Ottawa are the corners of a right isosceles triangle. That means Polaris is as far above the North Pole as the North Pole is from Ottawa: 5,000 km. But if you're viewing Polaris from New Orleans (6,675 km from the North Pole) at an angle of 30°, then it must be only 3,854 km above the pole.

Celestial navigation is based on the earth having a spherical surface; indeed, it only works on a globe. Try to use the same methodology to navigate on a flat earth, and the math is contradictory and incoherent. You'll get lost.

You don't need to be an astronomer or scientist to understand why the earth is not flat. I'm not. I just paid attention in class. How can you tell if someone didn't pay attention? They submit obvious howlers as devastating proof that the earth is flat.

If you believe the earth's surface is planar, but you can't find an accurate map of it, you might be a flat-earther.
If you believe the sun and moon are small and located just above the earth, but you can't explain why they're not always visible everywhere all the time, you might be a flat-earther.
If you believe Antarctica is actually an "ice wall" surrounding the earth, but you can't explain how a small and local sun can provide 24-hour daylight in the south from September to March while leaving the North Pole in 24-hour darkness, you might be a flat-earther.
If you believe there is no such thing as the south pole, but you can't explain why the sky appears to rotate around two points—one in the north and one in the south—you might be a flat-earther.
If you can't explain why the sky rotates clockwise in some places and counterclockwise in others, you might be a flat-earther.
If you can't explain why someone in Australia can never see the North Star or someone in Canada can never see the Southern Cross, you might be a flat-earther.
If you are an Australian, you might inexplicably be a flat-earther.
If you believe that an azimuthal equidistant projection map is the best representation of the earth, but you can't explain why the shortest distance for direct flights between Australia and Chile don't go over the Arctic, you might be a flat-earther.
If you claim that on a globe you shouldn't be able to see a city skyline from 100 km away because of the curvature, but you can't explain why you don't see the bottom half of the buildings, you might be a flat-earther.
If you can't explain why there's a horizon at all, you might be a flat-earther.
If you say gravity is really just density or buoyancy, but you can't identify the force causing denser or less buoyant objects to fall downward instead of some other direction, you might be a flat-earther.
If you fail to understand that you can't explain density or buoyancy without gravity, you might be a flat-earther.

Footnotes

To be precise, Quito is just south of the equator—just far enough that you can't actually see the North Star there. For the sake of argument, I'm taking a little creative liberty and assuming it sits directly on the equator.
I'm using Ottawa as my reference simply because that's where I am and what I can observe. The argument here would be the same anywhere else.

And now ... this (Sept. 24/25)

2025-09-24T12:44:00.001-04:00

Did anyone get raptured yesterday? Anyone?

According to Joshua Mhlakela, a South African pastor, the Rapture was supposed to take place yesterday. Mhlakela claims he had a visit from Jesus, who personally revealed that he would come for his church on September 23 or 24, aligning with this year's Rosh Hashana. The Rapture prediction got traction on social media, mainly TikTok.

Mhlakela claimed to be "a billion percent sure" of his prediction. Perhaps he should have exercised just a little more skepticism.

At least he just outright lied and claimed Jesus told him. So we can be thankful we didn't have to wade through something like the late Harold Camping's impenetrable math proofs to find out he was full of bull.

No Perelandra chapter this week

2025-09-17T12:18:00.000-04:00

I mean, you may have noticed.

Basically, between some personal matters and the news cycle of the last week or so, I've found myself either too busy or too preoccupied with other things to get beyond reading chapter 7 of Perelandra. So with next Sunday now closer than the last, I've decided just to leave it until this weekend rather than effectively double up. It's a significant chapter, anyway, and the extra time will be beneficial. It's worth doing right.

Perelandra: Chapter 6

2025-09-07T22:16:00.004-04:00

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend you support your local bookseller or public library, and read the book first.

Ransom has been sent on a voyage to Perelandra, or Venus, by the Oyarsa of Mars. There, he discovered that Venus is an ocean planet with giant floating mats of vegetation that serve as land. There, he also met a green-skinned woman, and through conversing with her in Old Solar, the lingua franca of the solar system outside of Earth, discovered that she is destined to be the mother of all Perelandrians: the Venusian Eve, as it were.

The archipelago of floating islands have joined into a temporary continent. Still exploring, Ransom comes to the edge of the "land" and, across the sea, spots what appears to be proper land: an actual island with a giant stone column or mountain. The Lady calls it the Fixed Land, and informs Ransom that while she may visit it, Maleldil has forbidden her or the King to sleep there. She is confused, and somewhat horrified, when Ransom informs her that all the land on Earth is fixed, and they have no such rule there.

As they contemplate this, they spot something falling into the ocean from the sky.

He and the Lady travel to the Fixed Land, riding the backs of silver, porpoise-like fish. When they reach the island, they explore it, Ransom happy to be on Earth-like terrain again, though the flora and fauna are alien.

When they climb some of the rocks to look out over the sea, Ransom spots the object that fell from Deep Heaven. It is a spherical vessel, which he recognizes as the same as the one in which Professor Weston had taken him to Malacandra. A figure leaves the sphere in a small boat and approaches the shore. Warning the Green Lady to stay away from him, Ransom goes to the beach to confront him. It is Weston, who recognizes him and demands to know why he is there.

Up to now, we haven't had an antagonist in this novel, but one has arrived in the person of Weston. He was the physicist who, with the help of Ransom's old school friend Devine, abducted him to Mars, supposedly to offer as a human sacrifice to the Martians. Weston's own intent was to exploit Malacandra's resources, particularly its plentiful gold. But he also believed in a kind of scientistic progressivism in which it was humanity's duty to expand to the stars, echoing such contemporary scientific materialists as H. G. Wells, J. B. S. Haldane, and Olaf Stapledon, whose views on human expansionism Lewis found repulsive.

Weston's plans for Mars were thwarted by Ransom with the help of the spiritual eldila that inhabit Malacandra, who tampered with Weston's sphere so that it disappeared once they returned to Earth. Clearly, Weston has built another. His outfit, shorts and a pith helmet, is very much the picture of a stereotypical English explorer. Is his outfit a hint to his colonial intent? Having failed to claim Mars for humanity, is he trying again on Venus?

The Green Lady, the Perelandrian native, is naked and unashamed because she is in a state of innocence. Ransom is a guest on this planet, naked by order of Oyarsa, but as the inhabitant of a fallen world, ashamed by his appearance. Weston alone is both clothed and unashamed: the man who has fallen from Deep Heaven and entered this edenic world on his own initiative, for purposes yet unknown. (Does Weston remind you of anyone? Hope you guess his name.)

Ransom is again upset by the distress he has caused the Green Lady: this time, when he mentions that all the land on earth is fixed and there can be no law against sleeping there. In her innocence, she cannot conceive of something being wrong in one place but not another, until Maleldil assures her it is so.

This is not simplistic moral relativism. Obviously, the Perelandrian law against sleeping on the Fixed Land is analogous to the prohibition against eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:16-17). That prohibition had a purpose: it was covenantal, part of the relational agreement between God and Adam. Obedience to the rule signified trust in God's goodness and wisdom; when the serpent tempted Eve, he did so by questioning God's goodness and undermining her trust. (Coincidentally, this was the topic of the sermon at church this morning.)

On Perelandra, the analogous rule is against sleeping on the Fixed Land. Is this why Ransom is here—to protect Perelandra from its own Fall by stopping its serpent (Weston?) from tempting its Eve?

Ransom thinks the mountain on the Fixed Land resembles the Giant's Causeway, a geologic formation in Northern Ireland consisting of thousands of basaltic columns. This suggests that the Fixed Land is of volcanic origin, which seems consistent with what we know today of Venus. I'm not sure how to square this kind of violent upheaval with a planet that's supposed to be unfallen. (Then again, it is just geology…)

What is Weston's intent on traveling to Venus? Will Ransom finally discover his mission? Chapter 7 comes next week.

Perelandra: Chapter 5

2025-09-02T16:42:00.000-04:00

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend reading the book first. It's short, I promise.

Yes, late yet again. I should just aim for Sunday and make the official release date Tuesday. (Except then I'll probably slip until Thursday.)

Elwin Ransom, philologist, was sent to Venus by Oyarsa, the spirit that rules Mars, which planet Ransom visited in captivity in Out of the Silent Planet, the first volume of the Space Trilogy. Venus (known outside of Earth as Perelandra) is an ocean world with giant floating vegetation mats. On his first day he discovered forests with trees bearing food; on his second, he became acquainted with a dragon-like creature that also inhabited his island. He also discovered that Venus has intelligent life: a green woman visiting a neighbouring island, who apparently mistook him for someone else. They could speak to each other in the universal tongue of the solar system, and he resolved to visit her island.

The next morning, Ransom finds that his island and the Green Lady's are only a few feet apart, and several islands have (temporarily?) formed a floating continent. The Lady is right there, singing to herself and plaiting together some flowers, and she initiates a conversation with him. This chapter is heavy on dialogue and light on action, so rather than my habitual plot summary, I'm going to talk about key points in their discussion.

The Green Lady's first words to Ransom are, "I was young yesterday." He doesn't initially understand what she means by that: taking her words at face value, he remarks that she's not that much older now. But she is speaking of her understanding. If I understand the discourse correctly, she finds it strange that Ransom speaks of time and life in terms of past, present, and future; she experiences life in the present moment. As they talk, she is also conversing with Maleldil, who is helping her understand what Ransom is saying.

Maleldil is the chief of all the spiritual beings in Deep Heaven (outer space, the solar system). The hierarchy of life was explained in Out of the Silent Planet: at the bottom are beasts, and above them, hnau (reasoning creatures); then eldila (spiritual creatures), and above all, Maleldil. He is, in other words, God—and it is him who is feeding the Green Lady information while she talks with Ransom.

Think back to Genesis and the creation story: "they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). Adam and Eve were accustomed to having the personal presence of God with them in Eden, before the Fall. Clearly, the Green Lady is intended to be the Venusian Eve, and we're meant to understand that Perelandra is yet in an unfallen state. If the paradisaical state of Venus, with its warm climate, delicious fruit, and benign wildlife aren't clues enough, here also we have an utterly innocent—and naked and unashamed—woman who has everyday conversations with Maleldil.

She is aware that there are other worlds, and that Ransom comes from Earth. This bewilders Ransom, because with Venus's constant cloud cover, she cannot possibly observe the night sky. He also wonders why it is that she is shaped like a human woman: he saw no humanoid creatures when he was taken to Mars. The Lady's response is that Malacandra is an older world than either Earth or Venus. On Earth, God created man in his own image (Gen. 1:26). Then God himself became man: "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). If God made man in his image, and then himself took on man's image, why expect Reason to ever appear in another form? "'And after this,' said Ransom, 'it will all be men'"—perhaps sad to see such creatures as he met on Mars fade away.

The Green Lady doesn't know the reason Maleldil became man; being perfectly innocent, Ransom cannot tell her about the Fall or the plan of redemption, which would corrupt her. Yet she knows a second reason, and she also cannot tell him. I wonder what that is? I don't remember whether that revelation comes elsewhere in the novel.

The next day, Ransom asks the Lady to meet her people, and she does not understand: she only knows one other person of her kind, the King, and does not know where he is. When he makes clear he means he wants to visit the place where her brothers and sisters and other kindred and her mother live. To this she replies: "I have a mother? What do you mean? I am the Mother." It is here that Ransom realizes he is not addressing another commoner like himself: the Green Lady is the Eve of Perelandra, the Queen to her King.

The chapter ends on a bit of a sour note. Ransom brings up their first meeting, and notes that when she realized he wasn't the King, she must have been disappointed. It results in, perhaps, an unintentional and small loss of innocence: "You make me grow older more quickly than I can bear," she says, and walks away. Ransom realizes that her innocence is a fragile thing, and he needs to be careful what he tells her.

I'm trying to be on time, I promise. So chapter 6 will ideally drop this coming Sunday.

September, again

2025-09-02T15:34:00.003-04:00

It's September, and that means it's time for the annual science-fiction moratorium. Originally I thought this idea up because my reading diet was almost exclusively sci-fi; however, this year, of the approximately 60 books I've read so far, only 10 of them have been. So as I branch out my literary interests, a moratorium seems to become increasingly irrelevant; but it's a habit I keep up, nonetheless.

Typically, I use September to broaden my literary horizons a bit: try something I've never read before or wouldn't pick up on impulse. This year, I've decided to keep it simple: get through William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's a classic work of World War II history that weighs approximately one anvil. I've owned my paperback copy for somewhat over 20 years and never read more than the first few chapters.

I just started Patrick O'Brian's The Surgeon's Mate, one of the volumes in his Aubrey-Maturin series of naval historical novels. I'll finish that before digging into Shirer. In the unlikely event that I finish Rise and Fall prematurely, I've still got about half of Ishiguro's The Unconsoled to finish off, and a whole bunch of classic Westerns I have yet to sample.

This won't affect my readthrough of Perelandra. The spirit of the rule is to open my mind a bit more, not to be abstemious, and not to cut short any projects I happen to have already in progress. I'm working on the installment for chapter 5 now, late as ever, and it should be posted shortly.

Let September begin!

Perelandra: Chapter 4

2025-08-26T22:30:00.000-04:00

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

Late again! My fault, this time. Sorry.

Ransom has been sent on a space voyage to Perelandra, Venus in our language, by Oyarsa, the spiritual being that rules Malacandra, or Mars. He was propelled through space by supernatural means in a translucent casket. When he landed on Venus, the casket dissolved and he was left afloat in the ocean that apparently covered Perelandra, where the climate is warm and perpetually overcast with golden clouds. Soon he discovered the several large floating mats of vegetation that act as land on Perelandra. Climbing onto one, he found some food, consisting of some delicious golden gourds, and then he slept.

When Ransom awakens, he continues exploring. He finds a grove of the golden fruit, and for the first time discovers animal life: a red dragon-like creature, which appears friendly but not intelligent. Some large flowers whose stalks accumulate bubbles of water serve as an impromptu perfumed shower. He also finds some large berries for food that taste very good and satisfy his hunger, but as with the golden fruit the previous day, he feels an impulse not to overindulge.

As Ransom explores, the dragon (which has been making a nuisance of itself in the meantime) zooms past him and flies to another island floating about half a mile away. He sees that the air and the oceans are teeming with life, and it’s all heading in that direction. In particular, he sees a pod of dolphin-like fish, and on the back of one, a human figure. He gets the being’s attention, and he sees that the figure is a green-skinned woman—who, evidently, was expecting someone else.

When they are close enough to speak, he gets her in Old Solar, the language of Malacandra. To his surprise, the green lady, now surrounded by a throng of beasts, points and laughs. Ransom shortly discovers that he is heavily sunburned on one side and still pale on the other, thanks to his trip through space in the translucent casket. This is the source of her amusement. When her laughter has calmed down, he announces that he is from another world and comes in peace. The green lady has no idea what that means, asking, “What is ‘peace’?” Ransom swims for her island and pulls himself ashore.

Finally,the action is beginning. We meet another principal character, the Green Lady, who appears, Disney-esque fashion, surrounded by friendly animals. She does not understand his simple greeting or the meaning of “peace”; is she naïve or completely innocent? It’s evident she was expecting someone, but not Ransom. Is there a Green Man yet to be revealed?

At the beginning of the chapter, when Ransom sees the grove of golden fruit with the dragon, he thinks the scene resembles the Garden of the Hesperides. In Greek mythology, the Hesperides were the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis, daughter of Hesperus. From the latter comes the literary name of the planet Venus in its evening aspect (as opposed to Lucifer, the name of Venus as the morning star).

The Hesperides tended a garden of golden apples. The Apple of Discord, in the myth of Helen of Troy, was one of these. The Garden was guarded by a dragon, which in classical art is portrayed as serpentine—perhaps to call the snake in the Garden of Eden to mind?—whereas the Perelandrian dragon is described as rather obese and the size of a St. Bernard. For the article graphic, I’ve chosen to depict him as the classical serpent. (I’ve also clothed Ransom in shorts—I don’t think the AI will let me depict him naked, even if I wanted that on my blog.)

There’s a similar scene in the Narnia novel, The Magician’s Nephew, when Digory Kirke reaches the walled garden containg the silver apples that will heal his mother’s illness. There, the garden is overlooked by a bird whom Digory feels it would be unwise to cross by taking a second apple for himself. Just as Digory’s Uncle Andrew in Narnia resembles Weston in Out of the Silent Planet scheming to exploit Malacandra’s resources, this may be another instance of Lewis recycling imagery from the Space Trilogy for the Chronicles of Narnia.

Chapter 4 is, again, not an action-packed chapter, at least until the end. Lewis/Ransom is still exploring the Perelandrian environment, setting the stage for the story yet to come. Things will pick up soon, for sure. See you next time.

Perelandra: Chapter 3

2025-08-19T18:55:00.000-04:00

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

I'm late! Oh my ears and whiskers.

Narrator-C. S. Lewis was summoned to the country cottage of Elwin Ransom, who informs him he was commissioned by Oyarsa, the spiritual being that rules Malacandra (Mars), to go on a journey to Perelandra (Venus) for reasons as yet unknown. His transportation was a featureless casket, propelled there by Oyarsa himself. Lewis was charged with helping him into the casket, and helping him out again when he returns—if he returns.

Over a year later, Oyarsa summoned Lewis back to the cottage. He and Humphrey, a mutual doctor friend whom Lewis also recruited to help Ransom, witness the return of the casket and help Ransom out again. Ransom began telling the story of his trip to them.

Enclosed in the casket, with only a blindfold to protect him from sunlight in space, Ransom arrives on Venus. The casket dissolves around him, leaving him in open water. The entire surface of Venus is apparently an ocean, and the sky is golden, perpetually overcast. Ransom also discovers that while there is no land, there are a multitude of large floating mats of vegetation He swims for one and climbs on. Exploring, he finds a forest, where he finds some particularly delicious fruit. Then he falls asleep.

Little was known about Venus in 1943. Telescope observations had confirmed a dense cloud cover, but there was no way of knowing what was beneath. It was assumed to be warm, but there was speculation about what lay beneath the clouds: desert, ocean, or vegetation. In the previous chapter, Ransom says:

"Our astronomers don’t know anything about the surface of Perelandra at all. The outer layer of her atmosphere is too thick. The main problem, apparently, is whether she revolves on her own axis or not, and at what speed. There are two schools of thought. There’s a man called Schiaparelli who thinks she revolves once on herself in the same time it takes her to go once round Arbol—I mean, the Sun. The other people think she revolves on her own axis once in every twenty-three hours. That’s one of the things I shall find out."

Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) was an Italian astronomer best known for his seminal studies of Mars. It was Schiaparelli who first "discovered" the "channels" (translated as "canals" in English) on Mars. He actually made no assumptions about their origin; it was Percival Lowell who ran with the idea of Martian canals being the product of intelligent life. They were later proven to be optical illusions. Schiaparelli also observed Mercury and Venus, and calculated the day of Venus to be 224 Earth days, the same length as its year. He was almost right: Venus's day is actually 243 days long. Venus is also the only planet with a retrograde rotation, that is, clockwise as opposed to its counterclockwise orbit around the sun. Neither this nor Venus's inhospitable climate were known until the 1960s.

Lewis was creating a fictional Venus—one where Ransom could fight a cosmic battle with evil. But it's clear he was well aware of the scientific understanding of Venus of the time, and he blends this with his own imaginative speculation. The same is true of his portrayal of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet.

A significant moment in this chapter is when Ransom discovers yellow fruit in the floating forest. He finds eating the fruit to be indescribably pleasurable. Yet, as he reaches for another one, he realizes, against all reason, that it might be better not to repeat the pleasure. It seems to parallel another discussion—a flashback at the beginning of the chapter, in which narrator-Lewis recounts

a sceptical friend of ours called McPhee was arguing against the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the human body. I was his victim at the moment and he was pressing on me in his Scots way with such questions as “So you think you’re going to have guts and palate for ever in a world where there’ll be no eating, and genital organs in a world without copulation? Man, ye’ll have a grand time of it!” when Ransom suddenly burst out with great excitement, “Oh, don’t you see, you ass, that there’s a difference between a trans-sensuous life and a non-sensuous life?” That, of course, directed McPhee’s fire to him. What emerged was that in Ransom’s opinion the present functions and appetites of the body would disappear, not because they were atrophied but because they were, as he said “engulfed.” He used the word “trans-sexual” I remember and began to hunt about for some similar words to apply to eating (after rejecting “trans-gastronomic”), and since he was not the only philologist present, that diverted the conversation into different channels. But I am pretty sure he was thinking of something he had experienced on his voyage to Venus.

Of course, "trans-sexual" has a completely different connotation today. But Ransom's retort says that in the resurrection, humans (being both physical and spiritual) will will experience life on a level that transcends mere human appetites (gastronomical or sexual) or sensory experience. It feels to me that Ransom's experience with the fruit is along the same lines. Following one's gastronomic appetite, it would make sense to have another fruit. But the experience itself is a spiritual one, and hence it would be a "vulgarity" to merely repeat it: "like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day."

That Ransom thinks this way at all suggests that the spiritual environment of Venus is very different from Earth, where such transcendent experiences are nonexistent, and of course we indulge (and overindulge) in sensual experiences all the time.

Not much happens in this chapter; we're still in the introductory section of ''Perelandra''. But it will pick up soon. Stay tuned for chapter 4 on Sunday—hopefully on time this week.

Perelandra: Chapter 2

2025-08-10T17:53:00.000-04:00

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Perelandra now. I promise I won't be offended.

The story so far: The narrator (a fictional version of Lewis himself) was summoned by his friend Professor Ransom on "business," which he understood to mean business having to do with Ransom's trip to Malacandra (Mars), as narrated in the previous novel, Out of the Silent Planet. Walking along the darkened road from the train to Ransom's cottage, he experienced a heavy feeling of oppression. When Lewis arrived at the cottage, he found it deserted, but in Ransom's hallway was a translucent, coffin-like box, and a strange shaft of light he recognized as an eldil, one of the spiritual inhabitants of Malacandra, with whom Ransom still communicated.

At the very end, Ransom finally returns to his cottage. He is relieved to learn that Lewis was not hindered by the "barrage" along the way: the oppressive feelings were real, caused by the dark eldila of Earth. He tells Lewis that they have gotten wind of what he is doing. The Oyarsa of Mars is sending Ransom on a voyage to Perelandra (Venus)—conveying him personally—and the vehicle is the coffin in the cottage.

Ransom does not know how long his trip will last or if he will even return. Lewis is there to pack him into the box. Ransom also charges him with coming back to unpack him, if and when he returns, and with recruiting a trusted successor in case Lewis himself is no longer alive. Lewis also decides to confide in Humphrey, a mutual doctor friend.

Lewis and Ransom carry the box outside and Lewis helps him inside—naked, with nothing but a blindfold to protect his eyes from sunlight. Then Ransom is taken away. Lewis does not see how.

More than a year later, Oyarsa summons Lewis. He and Humphrey return to Ransom's cottage, where they see the coffin descend from the sky. While the two earthbound men are a bit worse for wear, thanks to the ongoing war, Ransom himself looks healthy and even younger. He has a wound on his heel, however, which will not heal. Ransom relates his story over breakfast.

Like Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra involves Ransom being taken on a space voyage, each time by a means unexplained to the reader: to Malacandra in an H. G. Wells-esque sphere designed by the scientist Weston with an unexamined propulsion system, and to Perelandra in a mere box, transported supernaturally, with Oyarsa himself the means of propulsion.

Lewis reminds us that Elwin Ransom is a philologist (established in Out of the Silent Planet). Philology is a branch of linguistics dealing with the historical development of language over time. Ransom's profession helped him learn the Malacandrian language, or Hressa-Hlab. He expresses some disappointment that it is actually the lingua franca of the solar system, Old Solar or Hlab-Eribolef-Cordi, and so he won't get to solve the same problem on Venus. C. S. Lewis was not a philologist, but his friend J. R. R. Tolkien was. As he wrote in his autobiography, "Friendship with [Tolkien] marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both."¹ Lewis's 1960 book Studies in Words is about how a handful of significant English words have changed meaning over the ages, and could be considered a work in philology.²

Ransom jokes, in a self-deprecating manner, about "setting out single-handed to combat powers and principalities." This is an allusion to Ephesians 6:12. This immediately precedes the famous passage about the "whole armour of God," the practice of spiritual warfare, which the Bible describes primarily as practical holiness and effective apologetics (see Eph. 6:13-20 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-6). But here, there's a sense that Ransom expects to do some literal battle; as he interprets that same Ephesians verse, "When the Bible used that very expression about fighting with principalities and powers and depraved hyper-somatic beings at great heights (our translation is very misleading at that point, by the way) it meant that quite ordinary people were to do the fighting." The phrase Ransom renders "depraved hyper-somatic beings" is usually translated "spiritual wickedness" or "wicked spirits," and I'm not sure he's right about it being a bad translation.

Paul does mean there's a spiritual reality behind the "flesh and blood" we strive against, but what Ransom has in mind is clearly going beyond the practice of prayer, faith, and righteousness that Paul says are the weapons of spiritual warfare. The dark eldil of Earth (aka Thulcandra) are in conflict with the eldil of the other planets, and it seems as though Ransom is the proxy for the Malacandrian Oyarsa, doing battle against an enemy on Venus that is yet to be revealed.

The actual voyage to Venus is a story-within-a-story; the first two chapters, at least, are a frame story to set the context. There's no concluding chapter in which narrator-Lewis and Humphrey react to the tale Ransom has told them. With the end of this chapter, Lewis and Humphrey disappear from the narrative. From here on, it's Ransom's own story. See you next Sunday.

Footnotes

¹ Lewis, Surprised by Joy, Fadedpage, updated Sept. 7, 2023, accessed August 9, 2025, https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20150220/html.php.

² Lewis, Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).

Perelandra: Chapter 1

2025-08-03T14:27:00.000-04:00

Today I begin my readthrough of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, the second book of his Space Trilogy (also known as the "Cosmic Trilogy" or "Ransom Trilogy" in some editions). Sometimes alternatively titled "A Voyage to Venus," this short novel was originally published in 1943.

The story begins with the narrator (a fictionalized version of Lewis himself, presumably) travelling by train, then by foot, to the country cottage of Elwin Ransom, summoned there for "business"—which Lewis understands as something mysterious, and probably having to do with Ransom's previous voyage to Mars, aka Malacandra, as told in Out of the Silent Planet.

The road to Ransom's is dark. Perelandra was published in 1943 and presumably set in about the same time, so blackout regulations were in effect to prevent ground lighting from aiding enemy aircraft. There are darkened cottages and abandoned factories along the road, creating a foreboding atmosphere.

Lewis himself is gripped by unease. He realizes he has left his pack on the train and his first instinct is to return to the station, in spite of the fact that the train is long gone and there's nothing he can accomplish by returning rather than phoning the station in the morning. He is thinking constantly about the eldila, the incorporeal (spiritual?) intelligences Ransom met on Malacandra and apparently still speaks with from time to time. Lewis's fears, it seems, may not be entirely natural: perhaps some supernatural influence is holding him back.

When he arrives at Ransom's cottage, by now in a state of panic, it is empty but unlocked; inside, he discovers a coffin-like box made of something cold and translucent, resembling ice. Then he hears a voice calling for Ransom; the source is apparently a presence in the room that Lewis describes as a shaft of light that does not illuminate its environment. It is an eldil, Lewis realizes; indeed, it is Oyarsa, the ruler of Malacandra himself. Its presence seems to calm his panic. Just then Ransom returns and answers the eldil in its own language, and in spite of the horror he feels, Lewis is relieved to see him.

Lewis (the real one) does a good job of establishing the scene in this chapter. He could have just given a straight recap of Out of the Silent Planet. Instead, he gives a hint of what Ransom had experienced: his captive journey to Malacandra, meeting the inhabitants, and so forth, without giving too much of the story away. If the reader has not read the first novel already, he might be encouraged to do so, although as Lewis himself remarks in the preface, Perelandra can stand alone.

He also does a fine job of describing the eerie atmosphere along the walk and inside Ransom's cottage. In addition to the physical darkness caused by the war, accentuated by empty and ruined buildings, you get the sense that there's another kind of darkness about. The narrator's obsessive ruminations about eldila and alien beings aren't helping his state of mind—but it's almost as though a malevolent, oppressive force is also influencing him on his journey. He has sought excuse after excuse to abandon his visit: the darkness, the loss of his pack, the question of Ransom's sanity or whether his alien friends were good or evil. It is only when he encounters the eldil in the cottage that this oppression is lifted.

Finally, we start to get a sense of how Ransom has changed. In Out of the Silent Planet, he's a fairly straighforward stock character, a kind of reluctant hero or adventurer: someone thrust against his will into unusual circumstances who develops the courage to face his fears and help defeat the plans of Weston and Devine. But narrator-Lewis remarks that since his encounter with the Malacandrians, he's become otherworldly. It's like he's suffered a nervous breakdown, but narrator-Lewis knows that Ransom is as sane as anyone. One does not have a direct encounter with angels and leave unchanged.

I thought this was a great bit of prose, describing how disorienting the eldil was:

It was not at right angles to the floor. But as soon as I have said this, I hasten to add that this way of putting it is a later reconstruction. What one actually felt at the moment was that the column of light was vertical but the floor was not horizontal—the whole room seemed to have heeled over as if it were on board ship. The impression, however produced, was that this creature had reference to some horizontal, to some whole system of directions, based outside the Earth, and that its mere presence imposed that alien system on me and abolished the terrestrial horizontal.

How else can one describe a being that is so…right, it brings its own frame of reference with it and throws yours off-kilter?

Chapter 1 sets up the story, so I have little to say about it now. It does a good job of establishing the scene and setting the atmosphere, but the story will pick up later. We'll continue next Sunday with chapter 2.

Introducing the Space Trilogy readthrough

2025-08-02T22:17:00.002-04:00

I suppose I may be one of the relatively few people—Christians, at least—who appreciate C. S. Lewis more as a man of letters than an apologist.

Though I'm sure my route to discovering Lewis is the same as many others': I read the Chronicles of Narnia in about third or fourth grade. (Still have that paperback box set, too.) Then, in university, I found a stash of his nonfiction books in the school library: short books like Broadcast Talks and Beyond Personality, two of the three titles that were edited into Mere Christianity. And, of course, The Screwtape Letters, still probably my favourite piece of satire.

But it was in 1991 that I borrowed Lewis's Space Trilogy for the first time from the public library in Huntsville, where I was living that winter. And as much as I appreciated Narnia, it was through Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength that I came to love Lewis as an author.

Less so as an apologist or a theologian. The revelation in The Last Battle that Aslan reckoned sincere worship of Tash as worship of himself never sat right with me even as a ten-year-old who couldn't define theology, let alone explain it. And his theory of the atonement, as expressed in Mere Christianity—Christ confessing sin vicariously as the "perfect penitent"—also rankles me. I don't question the genuineness of Lewis's faith, but he had his weak spots. As we all do, I'm sure.

As a preteen or early teen, I discovered science fiction, starting with Asimov and Clarke. It wasn't long before I found H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, too, particularly The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. They weren't the hard(ish) SF I had been accustomed to, being as much in the realm of fantasy as science fiction, but I enjoyed the style nonetheless. Out of the Silent Planet was a clear homage to the stories of men like Wells and Verne, as Lewis himself acknowledges in his preface.

I last read Out of the Silent Planet in 2004, and wrote a review then. Re-reading the novel (and the review) a few weeks ago, I don't find that I've changed my opinion at all. So while officially this is a readthrough of the Space Trilogy, in practice I'm going to deem Out of the Silent Planet done, and start instead with Perelandra.

When I read through the Chronicles of Amber last year, I settled on a rate of two chapters per week. That was doable, but it kept me busy. For this series, I'm going to stick to one chapter per week. There are 34 chapters total in the remaining two novels, and only 21 weeks left in the year, so I'm going to overrun into 2026. Which is fine; I'll just choose to read through something a bit less ambitious next year.

I have a paper copy—a paperback omnibus that calls the series the "Cosmic Trilogy" instead—but I'll be reading from ebooks instead. Fortunately, C. S. Lewis is in the public domain in Canada (though maybe not in your country, so let your conscience be your guide), and all three novels can be downloaded from Fadedpage:

Feel free to read along. Hopefully, the first chapter of Perelandra drops tomorrow, although it might be delayed—I haven't found my writing-editing-posting rhythm just yet.

And now . . . this - Jan. 3/25

2025-01-03T10:40:00.003-05:00

According to a news release from the Hamilton Police Service, on Dec. 18, a man entered a BMO branch over the lunch hour. Having cycled to the bank in Hamilton’s Westcliffe East neighbourhood, the modern-day Jesse James left his wheeled steed outside, and proceeded indoors.…

Upon exiting the bank, and looking for his bike, the thief was reportedly “dazed and confused” upon realizing that some other enterprising bandito had made off with his bicycle.

[Full Story]

Like the man said: instant karma's gonna get you. I'm sure police are looking for the bike thief, too—though hopefully not too hard

2024 reading review

2025-01-01T16:39:00.000-05:00

It's the year 2525! (Well…2025, but you can't begrudge me a little bit of enthusiasm.) Time to review my year with books (this is not a book blog, I keep reminding myself).

As usual, my annual goal is to read 50 books of any kind. Last year, my final count was in the 70s. This year, it was…120. (My "official" count at Goodreads is 105, but several of those are actually omnibus volumes.) The average page count per book is still around 300, too. I wonder where I found the extra freet time. Maybe I didn't fall asleep as often.

The first book of the year was Emily's Quest by L. M. Montgomery, the final book in her Emily trilogy. Maybe it's juvenile, maybe it's girly, and maybe I started reading Montgomery in my teens to impress a girl. Nonetheless, over the years, Montgomery has become my favourite Canadian author.

The last novel of the year was Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh, which I finished on the weekend before Christmas. This is an SF novel from 1988 (which won the Hugo in 1989) about the implications of mass human cloning and designing human beings for specific functions. (A little bit like Blade Runner in that respect, I guess.) It's long, and I found it slow starting, but I got into it after a while. A good comeback, considering I didn't really enjoy reading Downbelow Station last year.

My newest book was In Too Deep by Lee and Andrew Child. As I said last year, as long as the Jack Reacher books keep coming out in October, and I keep reading them as soon as possible, this is going to be a recurring theme every year.

The oldest was Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, one of the great Chinese novels. I also finished reading the plays of Aphra Behn, the Restoration dramatist. But Journey to the West was published c. 1592, beating her by almost a century. This was another book that was hard to get into, and (though I'm not quite finished) might also be the longest book I've ever read.

When you've read double your intended goal for the year, it's twice as hard to pick a favourite. I suppose mine for 2023 was Holly by Stephen King, his most recent novel, featuring his neurotic lady detective from the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, etc.). My runner-up, collectively, was the Toradora! series of light novels by Yuyuko Takemiya. I saw the anime last year, and was so affected by it, I watched it again. The novels didn't disappoint, either—surprising since I'm hardly a romance reader.

It's a little easier to pick a least favourite when you devote an entire month to reading something other than genre fiction, which inevitably leads to some rather bleak and depressing literature. This year's "winner" was The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, a fictionalized telling of the story of a Bosnian cellist who risked his life to play an adagio every day for each of the victims of a bombing. The problem with the book is that it wasn't really about the cellist. He was a backdrop to his own story, and it kind of left me cold. The runner-up was its immediate predecessor on my list, Rabbit, Run by John Updike. (Is there a proper literary word for a novel's main character who is just unpleasant in every possible way? "Anti-protagonist"?)

My best new discovery of the year was, A Confederacy of Dunces, the Pulitzer-winning novel by John Kennedy Toole. Again, this was one of my selections for September. Its (anti?) protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, is an overweight, unemployed, pretentious pseudo-intellectual who lives with his mother. If Toole had written this novel in the 2020s instead of the 1960s, he'd probably be a terminally-online Redditor.

I met my goal of reading five nonfiction books this year, though no more. The topics were literary criticism, theology, and poetry. The last, in particular (Anglican poet Malcolm Guite's two books Waiting on the Word and The Word in the Wilderness) have sort of sparked my interest in poetry, and I plan to read more this year. (I didn't like poetry when I was in university, leading one of my English profs to remark once—tongue-in-cheek, hopefully—what I didn't deserve an English degree. Better late than never.)

There were two goals that I didn't meet: First, finishing the works of Stephen King. I have one book left, You Like It Darker, which I am about 2/3 of the way through. Second, completing Journey to the West. I read three of the four volumes of Anthony Yu's translation, but just ran out of time. Since my Christmas vacation is usually a good time to blitz through a few books, I would have accomplished both. How was I to know that a medical problem would keep me in the emergency room for so much of my free time? I'll finish with Stephen King soon, though, and then clear the Monkey King off my list a little later, after I've gone through my outstanding library books (why do long-time reserves always come in at once?).

Finally, my reading goals for 2024 include:

doing a new readthrough. I really enjoyed the experience of blogging my way through Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, and I plan to do a few books regularly. My plan is to start with the final two books in C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy (having already read and reviewed the first, albeit 20 years ago) and if time permits, a nonfiction book to be determined
with my Stephen King reading project coming to an end, moving on to another author: specifically, Patrick O'Brian, author of the Aubrey-Maturing series of historical fiction
continuing my habit of reading drama on Saturdays over breakfast, but instead of focusing on a particular author (i.e. Shakespeare and Behn), choose instead from a wide variety of classic plays from the Renaissance to the modern era
finish up some of the series I've started, but left hanging

Happy 2025, everyone.

And now ... this - Nov. 20/24

2024-11-20T13:31:00.004-05:00

It's a few weeks old, but it's a goodie:

A Russian court has fined Google two undecillion roubles—a two followed by 36 zeroes—for restricting Russian state media channels on YouTube.

In dollar terms that means the tech giant has been told to pay $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

[Full Story]

In comparison terms, that means that if Google paid the fine in cash, the mass of the US dollar bills would be 3.3 million times the mass of the entire earth.

Obviously, Google would pay in the largest denomination in circulation, and the stack of $100 bills would merely be 33,000 times as massive as the planet, which is far less ridiculous.

The Chronicles of Amber, chapter 14: The conclusion

2024-10-13T09:00:00.007-04:00

This is it. The final chapter of The Courts of Chaos and of the Chronicles of Amber. It's been a fun trip.

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

This last chapter is more of an epilogue. Random, appointed the king of Amber by the Unicorn and attuned to the Jewel of Judgment by Corwin, successfully turns away the Chaos storm. He, too, is now gone, and only Corwin and his son Merlin remain on the field of battle where Amber conquered Chaos.

Earlier, Dara accused Corwin of taking away the "two most important persons in my life." One, obviously, was Borel, her swordmaster, whom Corwin slew during the battle. I wasn't sure who the second was, but after a few chapters, it's clear she meant Merlin, who, after everyone else has retreated to the citadel of the Courts of Chaos, has elected to stay with his father rather than continue on with his mother.

As Corwin sits there, he reflects on the changes in himself and his attitudes toward his family. He gives a brief farewell to Oberon and each of his brothers and sisters. Only to Brand, the source of all their troubles, does he say nothing positive, wishing only that he would "be dead and trouble my thinking no more." To Caine, his remaining antagonist amongst his brothers, he makes a peace offer; for his sister Flora, who kept him prisoner in the hospital at the beginning of Nine Princes in Amber, he simply forgives her past wrongs.

Of himself—"the man clad in black and silver with a silver rose upon him"—he acknowledges the changes in his own character: "that he has learned something of trust, that he has washed his eyes in some clear spring, that he has polished an ideal or two." On the other hand, he also acknowledges his remaining faults: "He may still be a smart-mouthed meddler, skilled mainly in the minor art of survival, blind as ever the dungeons knew him to the finer shades of irony." And Corwin is comfortable with that. He can't measure up to his own standards. Who can?

Corwin's valedictory to Dara is curious: "Carmen, voulez-vous venir avec moi? No? Then good-bye to you too, Princess of Chaos. It might have been fun." At first glance, I thought this might have been another editorial oops: perhaps Carmen was the name Zelazny originally gave Dara. Pondering the similarities between Dara and the femme fatale of the Bizet opera that bears her name—both women are fiercely independent, seductive, and manipulative—I started doing a little Web research on Carmen. In doing so, I discovered that "Carmen, voulez-vous venir avec moi?" is a quotation from the Prosper Mérimée novella on which the opera is based. The same line is spoken by Humbert Humbert in Lolita. My guess is Zelazny was alluding to the latter rather than the former. Corwin had had a fling with Dara, and while he seemed unconcerned with their degree of consanguinity, he (like Humbert) was trying to transfer her trust to himself from Benedict (or so he supposed); and (unlike Humbert) he was not entirely comfortable with their difference in age: "I did not want to be in love with her. Not now. Later, perhaps. Better yet, not at all. She was all wrong for me. She was a child." (Is this why Zelazny first paired Corwin with the adult Lorraine?) And in the end, she wants nothing to do with him in any case. Kudos to Roger Zelazny for finishing off the Chronicles of Amber with a multilayered intertextual shout-out.

In the end, the Trumps have regained their function, and Random is able to contact Gérard. "Amber stands"—although years have passed there in the few days Corwin experiences from his point of view. And Corwin may have a whole new universe (multiverse?) to explore, if his own new Pattern has survived. Thus the Chronicles of Amber end on a positive note, if perhaps an unnecessarily open-ended one.

Final thoughts on The Courts of Chaos and the Chronicles of Amber

When The Courts of Chaos begins, there's little ambiguity anymore about where the battle lines are drawn. The action in this novel leads up to the inevitable, climactic battle for Amber. I could only wish the conclusion lived up to the build-up. Zelazny started well, but at the very end, I think he ran out of gas.

The majority of this book focuses on Corwin's journey from Amber to the Courts of Chaos. If the previous volumes of this series have given us plenty of examples of conflict between man and man or man and nature, here we get conflict between man and self, as Corwin contemplates his doubts about the nature of reality and his place in it. There was some discussion before about solipsism—do the Amberites create the realities they travel to, or do they discover them?—but here it takes up multiple chapters and brings additional characters into the debate.

In the earlier books of this series, I had fun chasing down Zelazny's sometimes obscure literary allusions. In the middle volumes, he either cut down on them or made them so esoteric that I passed them by without noticing. In that respect, then, The Courts of Chaos was more like Nine Princes in Amber or The Guns of Avalon. (Were the little people in their underground lair a shout-out to leprechaun lore, Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," or something else?)

On the other hand, I note that while The Courts of Chaos tied up the numerous loose ends remaining at the end of The Hand of Oberon, nonetheless, as the final book of this series, its ending was a bit too open and vague, and left me somewhat cold. I don't think we ever did get a firm grasp on the conflict between Amber and Chaos. What was that apocalyptic battle at the end fought over, again? Sure, the villains get their comeuppance and things are set to rights, but it also feels like there was wasted potential for a sixth book in which Corwin et al have to deal with the aftermath of all the crap they put the multiverse through.

Maybe that's why Zelazny started a second Amber series seven years later. I haven't read it yet, but I will. I first read these novels around 1990, and my very general recollection was that I enjoyed them at the time but they made little impression on me. These two volumes have languished in a Rubbermaid bin in the basement ever since. One English B.A. and three decades later, I find I come away with a much more favourable impression. I'm looking forward to tackling the second cycle someday—when I can find copies.

On readthroughs

This series was a bit of an experiment. As I said way back in January, I was inspired by a readthrough of The Lord of the Rings on a book blog,¹ and was inspired to try my hand at it myself (though of course with a different book). Nine months later, was it worth it? Very much so. I reacquainted myself with some fantasy that I originally read around 1990, came away with a better impression of it now than what I recall from the first time, and wrote 57 articles on schedule (though occasionally forgetting to publish them).

Will I do it again? Again, yes! Though instead of tackling a huge book that takes most of the year, instead I want to do maybe two or three shorter works in a variety of genres: fiction, philosophy, theology. And I may ease up on the posting schedule, too. Semi-weekly wasn't too bad, but it was demanding. And unless I feel really, really strongly about something I just read, it won't be until the new year.

In other words, I'll be solidifying my this-is-not-a-book-blog credentials by posting more than ever about books.

Footnote

¹ Ceci n'est pas un footnote: I insist this is not a book blog. It's just mostly about books.

The Chronicles of Amber, chapter 13

2024-10-10T09:00:00.002-04:00

With the defeat of the Chaosians and the death of Brand, the Amberites won the day. But they lost their father Oberon, as well as their sister Dierdre and the Jewel of Judgment. Corwin collapsed and rested by the black road after Oberon's funeral procession passed. When he came to, Dara was riding past and berated him for killing her swordmaster, Borel, then left him to return to her own people. Corwin's son Merlin met him briefly, and they began to talk, but they were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the Unicorn of Amber.

The Unicorn has the Jewel of Judgment around her neck. She gives it to Random, indicating that he has been chosen as the heir to the Amber throne. Though surprised, he accepts, and the other Amberites lay their swords at his feet.

Since Random is not attuned to the Jewel, he offers it to Corwin to hold off the Chaos storm. However, Corwin doesn't believe he has the stamina to succeed. Instead, he assists Random in attuning himself to the Jewel. He weakens and faints, but the attempt is successful, and when he comes to, tended to by Fiona, Random is holding back the storm while the rest of the Amberites retreat along the black road to the citadel of the Courts of Chaos.

Finally, only Random, Corwin, and Merlin remain. Merlin resumes his earlier conversation, wanting to hear more of Corwin's history. Corwin begins relating his story, beginning with the hospital in Albany.

Oberon's message to his children had said:

With my passing, the problem of the succession will be upon you. I had wishes in this regard, but I see now that these were futile. Therefore, I have no choice but to leave this on the horn of the Unicorn.

This is almost literally true, as the Unicorn carries the Jewel to Random on her horn.

The selection of Random as the new king is unexpected, not the least by Random himself. Oberon's "wishes in this regard" had been to put Corwin on the throne, but as Corwin's character developed, he realized he had only wanted the throne because Eric had it, and now that he didn't hate Eric any more, he abandoned the claim.

Julian is the first to offer Random his allegiance. At the beginning of the story, he was allied with Eric, and Corwin's first battle in the series pitted himself and Random against Julian and his hunting dogs in the forest of Arden. As Corwin tells Random, there do not appear to be any hard feelings.

"You have a lot of hard work ahead of you," he adds. Does he? There's little sense in these books of what the king of Amber actually does. He rules Amber, clearly. But Oberon abandoned the throne and hasn't been ruling. And there's been no sense of everyday life in Amber: by all appearances—contrasted with Chaos—it's a very static realm, hence the double meaning of the title Nine Princes in Amber. The children of Oberon spend more time staving off each other than enemies foreign and domestic, and it seems to have no appreciable effect on Amber proper.

Brand described the attunement process like this:

"There is another way to attune a person to the Jewel. It requires the assistance of someone who is already attuned. You would have to project yourself through the Jewel once more, and take me with you—into and through the primary Pattern that lies beyond."

As I interpret this, instead of using an external Pattern (like the one in Amber), someone can be attuned to the Jewel of Judgment by walking the Pattern it contains within itself. Of course, to access it, it takes someone already attuned to lead the newbie through, which Corwin and Random do successfully.

"The cause of all our troubles, Brand, was dead." That seems pretty final. I assume that means Dierdre is gone, as well, bringing the permanent deaths among the Amberites to four: Eric, Oberon, Brand, and Dierdre. Yet, somehow, the Unicorn managed to rescue the Jewel from the abyss. I wonder why she couldn't have rescued Brand or Dierdre as well.

One chapter remains of The Courts of Chaos and the original Chronicles of Amber. Hopefully I can publish that this Sunday, but it may take longer.

Science Fiction-Free September '24 wrap-up

2024-10-09T12:58:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrapped up the 2024 installment of my annual Science Fiction-Free September. I'm happy to proclaim this year's moratorium on SF novels (and, more broadly, commercial fiction) a success.

I planned for five novels, plus two extras if time remained. I completed six, plus a handful of plays by Aphra Behn and a few Japanese light novels (in English). So overall, I read 14 individual titles this September, with a number of them being short and light reading. But the main selections were anything but light! I noted last year that I'd chosen some heavy-hitting fiction, and the same is true this year.

My favourite book for the month: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I loved the satire of the idle, pretentious pseudo-intellectual. If Toole had written this novel in the 2020s, might he have made Ignatius a terminally online Redditor? Runner-up: Alan LeMay's The Searchers. Amos Edward's monomaniacal quest for revenge on the Comanche tribe that murdered his brother and sister-in-law and abducted their young daughter is like a Western Moby-Dick.

On the other hand, my least favourite book was Rabbit, Run, by John Updike. It's a beautifully written novel, but Rabbit Angstrom is possibly the nastiest character I've ever encountered in a book. The runner-up is The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway, the newest book on the list. While I can't point to a fatal fault, the story, about a handful of intertwined lives amidst the Seige of Sarajevo in the 1990s, just didn't click with me.

In the middle were Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the "Narcissus"—coincidentally, the two 19th-century nautical novels. Again, there are no specific faults, but neither book was quite what I was expecting.

Of course, I owe the blog at least 250 words about each of these books, and these will be forthcoming once I wrap up the last two installments of the Amber readthrough.

I had just begun Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, my second "extra innings" novel, when the month ended. As it turns out, it's considerably longer than his previous books. I'm enjoying it, but I think I want to set it aside for a while and reset with a few more mass-market selections. Have I mentioned I'm down to the last three Stephen King novels?

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 12

2024-10-06T09:00:00.009-04:00

Using the new primal Pattern he had created before Brand stole the Jewel of Judgment, Corwin teleported himself to the battleground at the Courts of Chaos. There, Brand took Dierdre hostage as a bargaining chip to force Corwin to help him with his own plans. However, he was shot by a mysterious green-clad archer, causing him, Dierdre, and the Jewel fell into the Chaosian abyss. The archer revealed himself as Caine, who had faked his own murder to get to the bottom of the intrigue in Amber secretly. As they spoke, they were interrupted by three trumpeters on horseback emerging from the black road.

The three horsemen are the heralds of a massive procession of musicians, horsemen, dragons, and other creatures from Shadow. Finally, there is a cart draped in black, bearing a casket, and driven by Dworkin. It is Oberon's funeral cortège.

After the procession, Fiona leads Corwin away from the edge of the abyss, and he rests. He is awakened by a woman with a non-human appearance on horseback; it is Dara. She says Corwin is not the man she thought he was, and blames him for losing "the two most important persons in my life." Announcing that she is returning to her own people at the Courts of Chaos, she rides away along the black road.

When Fiona returns, Corwin complains that his life has come to nothing: after breaking out of a santitarium, fighting for Amber, and reconciling with his father and family, all of it is on the brink of destruction. After some comforting, Fiona announces that Corwin's son Merlin would like to see him. They share some wine, and they talk. Merlin believed he was going to sit on the throne of Amber, and wanted to walk its Pattern, but as Corwin tells him, Amber may no longer even exist.

The stormfront finally advances enough that it is time to retreat to the Courts of Chaos. As Corwin and Merlin rise to leave, they receive a visitor: the Unicorn of Amber.

According to Bleys, Oberon "wanted to be taken beyond the Courts of Chaos and into the final darkness when his time came at last.… Beyond Chaos and Amber, to a place where none reigned." I have this macabre image of the cortège carrying Oberon's casket to the very edge of reality, and then chucking him over the edge.

It seems this may be the last we see of Dara (or is it?). Corwin's character has developed for the better since the beginning of series, from his own point of view, but obviously Dara has a completely different impression: "You are not what I was led to believe. I had seen you as a truly noble figure—strong, yet understanding and sometimes gentle. Honorable…" Also, she says, "You have cost me two of the most important persons in my life." Assuming one is Borel, her sword teacher whom Corwin rather unceremoniously dispatched in the previous chapter, then who is the second?

"I thought of Hugi. Had I digested his flight from life as well as his flesh?" Corwin did eat Hugi. Heh. Well, he did tell him he'd eat crow…

Merlin and Corwin seem to get along all right, despite the fact that though they are father and son, they are complete strangers—;and on their first encounter, Corwin killed Merlin's friend.

The unicorn makes its third appearance in the Amber series. The first was (predictably) in Sign of the Unicorn, where it appeared to Corwin and Gérard as they retrieved the body of Caine. The second was at the end of the same novel, where the unicorn leads Corwin, Ganelon/Oberon and Random to the primal Pattern in the real Amber. The first apparition didn't have a clearly defined significance or message, except maybe to foreshadow that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in Amberite philosophy—a truth borne out by the second. So what does this sudden and last-minute third appearance of the unicorn portend? The penultimate chapter of The Courts of Chaos drops on Thursday.

RIP auto-posting

2024-10-03T16:12:00.003-04:00

Sometime after Sunday, I realized that my posts weren't automatically publishing to Twitter. After a bit of investigation, I learned that dlvr.it ended their free tier. Oddly enough, I was informed that my "trial" had ended, though I've been using the service for years.

Well, that's annoying. It's their business, of course, but one of my pet peeves is when long-established free services on the Internet start demanding money out of the blue.

And then I thought, "Wait a minute, I'm a programmer." Why can't I roll my own auto-poster? Polling the site and grabbing the title and URL for new posts is easy, so the only thing I really need to learn is how to access the X API. (And in so doing, I realized I'd inadvertently been "spamming" for several months, by posting substantially identical tweets to both my accounts. I'll be a bit more creative with the second cross-post, I promise!)

Not that the Faithful Readers will necessarily notice, but automatic posting will resume shortly. That is all.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 11

2024-10-03T12:45:00.002-04:00

Corwin was riding from Amber to the Courts of Chaos, to bring the Jewel of Judgment to Benedict's battle there and give them an advantage against the Chaosians. However, he was overtaken by the oncoming Chaos storm of Shadow being torn apart after Oberon's possibly failed attempt to repair the primal Pattern at Amber. To protect himself from the storm, Corwin used the Jewel to create a new Pattern where he was. He was successful, but when he was finished, Brand appeared and stole the Jewel from him.

Corwin then used the new Pattern to transport himself to the battlefield in Chaos. He found Brand at a vantage point overlooking the scene, using his partial attunement with the Jewel to fight the Amberite forces with lightning. As the Amberites reached Brand, he took Dierdre hostage.

With Brand holding Dierdre at knifepoint, he is in a standoff with the rest of the Amberites. Fiona, his former ally, has him under a spell that immobilizes him, but all she can do is hold him in place. As they discuss their options, a giant apparition of Oberon appears in the sky. He announces that he is going to try and repair the Pattern, that Corwin will use the Jewel of Judgment to protect them when the wave of Chaos reaches them, and that the problem of succession to the Amber throne is up to them to decide. The giant face then disappears.

However, Brand still has the Jewel. Unlike Corwin, he is unable to use it to hold back the storm. So the hostage negotiations resume. Meanwhile, Corwin, unseen, reaches out to the Jewel and uses it to distract Brand by setting him on fire. Brand slashes Dierdre's face, but she bites his hand and frees herself. Someone shoots him with an arrow, and he stumbles backward into the abyss—taking Dierdre and the Jewel with him. Random hits Corwin to stops him from throwing himself after them. When he comes to, the battle is essentially over, with the survivors of both sides converging on their vantage point as the Chaos storm advances.

The arrow that killed Brand was shot by the mysterious knight in green, who now reveals himself: it is Caine. He faked his own death to secretly investigate the trouble in Amber, believing either Corwin or Brand to be the one behind it. Corwin was framed for his murder to get him out of the way. He eavesdropped on the other Amberites via the Trumps (as Oberon, as Ganelon, told Corwin he suspected someone was doing). Caine also confessed to stabbing Corwin and attacking Brand the second time.

As he is about to apologize, he is interrupted by a trumpet blast. A rider on a black horse appears on the black road, where it splits the stormfront. He is soon joined by two more trumpeters.

The big revelation in this chapter was that Caine is still alive. As I said last time, I thought he might turn out to be someone who was presumed dead. That said, my money was on Oberon yet again. Of course, Caine's "death" began the action in Sign of the Unicorn, and faking one's death is a classic plot device in murder mysteries. It enables the "victim" to frame someone for his murder, or to investigate the would-be crime in secret. Caine does both.

Brand is now dead, along with Dierdre, and the Jewel is gone forever. Or are they? Brand can teleport without the use of Trumps, and Bleys survived a plunge from Mt. Kolvir even having to use them. Might he (and they) still come back? There are three chapters left.

Deirdre … she had meant more to me than all the rest of the family put together. I cannot help it. That is how it was. How many times had I wished she were not my sister. Yet, I had reconciled myself to the realities of our situation. My feelings would never change, but … now she was gone, and this thought meant more to me than the impending destruction of the world.

That confession sheds some light on something Corwin narrated during his trip to Tir-na Nog'th, where he saw a vision of "two figures, embracing, within. They part as I begin to turn away. None of my affair, but … Deirdre … One of them is Deirdre. I know who the man will be before he turns." Is the man in the vision himself, or someone else? Either way … ew.

The apparition of Oberon was some masterful sardonic humour. In the heat of an intense hostage situation, his giant head appears in the sky. Oberon went to considerable effort to tell his children that since he might be about to die, he was incredibly disappointed in them all, and they could solve their own political problems afterward.

Who are the three riders? Bleys and Fiona know, and I guess the rest of us will find out in the next chapter.

Happy birthday, Jimmy Carter

2024-10-01T12:57:00.000-04:00

On December 12, 1952, the first meltdown of a nuclear reactor occurred in the National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario. There were no fatalities or injuries, but radioactive material was leaked into the environment and vented into the atmosphere.

The cleanup took months and involved hundreds, including 150 American military personnel, led by a 28-year-old U.S. Navy submarine lieutenant named Jimmy Carter who was part of the fledgling nuclear submarine program. Disassembling the reactor involved donning protective gear and being lowered into it for only a few minutes at a time to avoid overexposure to radioactivity.

Supposedly, Carter's exposure to radiation was 1000 times what would be considered safe today: it's said that he peed radioactive urine for six months, and his ability to have children in the future was in question.

As it turned out, he had four children, became the governor of Georgia, and then was elected the 39th president of the United States. Following his presidency, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work. And today, Jimmy Carter turned 100. Not only is he the longest-lived ex-president and the former president with the longest post-presidency, but he's the first president to become a centenarian. Carter has outlived all his predecessors in the Oval Office, and two of his successors. It would appear that the comic books are right: exposure to radioactivity endows you with superpowers.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 10

2024-09-29T09:00:00.005-04:00

Corwin hellrode most of the way from Amber to the Courts of Chaos, facing opposition from Brand and others all the way, only to find that he would not be able to complete the journey, as he could not outrun the oncoming storm of Shadow being undone by Oberon's failure to repair the Pattern in primal Amber. Instead, Corwin decided to create a new Pattern where he was to hold back the destruction. Where Oberon failed, he succeeded—but immediately he was attacked by Brand, who materialized, stole the Jewel of Judgment, and disappeared.

After a time, Corwin looks up and sees that the plateau he was on had ben renewed, and the staff cut from the tree Ygg has itself grown into a tree. He reasons that his mission to carry the Jewel to Chaos had not entirely failed if Brand did the job for him. He uses the new Pattern to teleport himself to the Courts of Chaos.

There, Corwin is attacked by a horned rider on a black horse. He easily dispatches him, but the rider recognizes the silver rose on his coat. Taking the horse, he rides on to the battlefield. He is challenged by another rider, this time a hulking redheaded brute named Borel. Corwin runs from him, then ambushes him when he gives chase.

Many of his siblings are in the battle. There is also a knight clad in green, an effective fighter, whom he doesn't recognize. The storm is still coming, so Corwin decides to search for Brand, hoping he can take control of the Jewel. He sees him at a safe vantage point, and gives chase. So do many of his brothers and sisters and the knight in green. Brand attacks the group with lightning. Corwin reaches Brand's location, but he is no longer there. Then Corwin hears "a scream and a curse" nearby.

Oberon gave Corwin his orders back in chapter 3. Oberon's exact intent was a little easy to miss, and I did, indeed, miss it. Mea culpa. Here's what he told Corwin:

"No good," Dad said. "It will be necessary for you to take the longer route because you will be carrying something which will be conveyed to you along the way."

"Conveyed? How?"

He reached up and stroked the red bird’s feathers.

"By your friend here. He ue not fly all the way to the Courts—not in time, that is."

"What will he bring me?"

"The Jewel. I doubt that I will be able to effect the transfer myself when I have finished what I have to do with it. Its powers may be of some benefit to us in that place."

Put briefly, Oberon instructed Corwin to carry the Jewel to to Chaos, to aid Benedict's forces in his attack there. But he also needed the bloodbird to carry it to Corwin once he was finished with it, and so Corwin needed to remain within reach. Then, he needed to complete the hellride because with all of reality rearranging itself, the Trumps wouldn't work. Simple enough, really, but Zelazny's prose here is just oblique enough to miss the more subtle point.

The image at the beginning of the chapter was an interesting one. Corwin's staff was cut from a tree named Ygg, obviously meant to represent Yggrasil, the World Tree of Norse myth. Now, at the location of Corwin's new Pattern, the staff has flowered into a new tree—a new Yggdrasil, perhaps. The text suggests that the new Pattern is primal; it's not made of Shadow like the one in Amber. This means it's the source of Shadow. Like the mythical Yggdrasil that connects the nine worlds, this new Ygg Jr. stands at the centre of whatever new worlds are created by Corwin's new Pattern.

In a tense chapter, the "fight" with Borel was a tidbit of humour. Borel was the swordsman who taught Dara; she mentioned his name in chapter 2. Borel wants to approach their swordfight with appropriate honour and ritual. Corwin, meanwhile, just wants it over with. He isn't unskilled with the blade, but perhaps understandably, he doesn't want to face down an actual swordmaster just now. It reminds me of the swordsman scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, though of course that movie came later.

Who is the knight in green? When an author emphasizes that a character is unidentifiable, as Zelazny does here, it's probably a safe bet that he's an established character in disguise, about to make a surprise appearance. Right now, though, there aren't too many characters who aren't already on the battlefield. Gérard isn't there, but he was supposed to stay in Amber (did he survive the storm?), and in any case, it's been said repeatedly that he's without guile. There's no reason for him to be sneaking around. Recently introduced characters like Martin or Merlin don't really merit such a dramatic reveal (and it's not clear whose side they'd be on, anyway). Could it be someone Zelazny has led us to believe was dead?

Obviously Brand snuck away from his vantage point to attack one of the Amberites. Which one, I wonder?

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 9

2024-09-26T09:00:00.006-04:00

While Oberon attempted to repair the primal Pattern, he tasked Corwin with riding from Amber to Chaos, delivering to him the Jewel of Judgment by messenger bird along the way. Corwin was hindered in that mission: by his brother Brand who attempted to steal the Jewel and shot his horse, by the seductive Lady, by murderous leprechauns, and by a ponderous crow, and last by a murderous jackal. Finally Corwin reached a vast plateau he could not hope to cross before the storm of Shadow undoing itself caught up with him. On the plateau he sees the black road, proving that Oberon had failed. He realized his only choice was to use the Jewel to create a pattern where he was.

He plants the staff he cut from the tree, Ygg, in the ground. Staring into the Jewel, which contains the template of the Pattern, Corwin begins to walk its shape on the ground. He meets no resistance as he goes, unlike walking an established Pattern like the one in Amber. The act brings up pleasant memories of his past life on Earth, especially of Paris in the early 20th century. However, around the periphery of the Pattern, images of faces mock him. The advancing storm finally catches up with and overtakes him, but it does not obliterate the ground where he is working.

There is one moment of resistance as Corwin nears the end of the labyrinth, but then the Pattern is complete, and he stands at its centre. Suddenly Brand appears, having apparently teleported there just as Corwin finished. He is wearing an eyepatch over the eye that Corwin's bloodbird attacked. He steals the Jewel, kicks Corwin to the ground, and disappears. Corwin collapses in despair.

This is a short chapter, light on plot but momentous. Corwin has succeeded where Oberon apparently failed: creating a new Pattern, albeit one in Shadow and close to Chaos rather than in the primal Amber. Presumably this new Pattern will hold off the destruction of the Shadow multiverse that began with Oberon's work. Brand regards it as a hindrance to his own plan to destroy the primal Pattern, then recreate Amber and Shadow to his own liking. "Now," he complains, "I have another Pattern to destroy before I set things right."

First, he says, as he departs with the Jewel of Judgment, "I need this to turn the battle at the Courts." In case you'd forgotten, Corwin's hellride was but one part of Oberon's larger plan. Benedict went directly to the Courts of Chaos to engage the Chaosians in battle, but how that is going, we don't yet know, because Corwin doesn't know. I'm still half convinced Corwin's hellride was intended as a diversion. It's kept Brand distracted until now. Maybe giving Corwin the opportunity to create a new Pattern was actually the plan all along. Obviously, it' within Oberton's abilities to manipulate people and events that way.

As Corwin walks his new Pattern, he recalls good memories of living in Paris in 1905. The suggestion is that the Jewel is evoking these memories, just as walking the Pattern in Rebma restored his memory the first time. But he also seems to be channelling those memories back into his work to create the Pattern. Perhaps by feeding good memories of a good world back into the Jewel, this new Pattern will also have a good effect on the Shadows it casts.

The chapter ends with Corwin seemingly defeated. But I think he's won. Whatever Brand's plan is, he's foiled it, at least for the time being. And this is a pulp novel with only five chapters remaining, so it's a fair guess that everything will turn out right. The fun will be in seeing where it goes from here. Back to the Courts of Chaos, I hope.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 8

2024-09-22T09:00:00.008-04:00

On his hellride to the Courts of Chaos, Corwin has been hindered multiple times: by Brand, who attempted to trap him in Shadow and shot his horse in an attempt to take the Jewel of Judgment; by Lady, a woman who tried to seduce him away from his mission; by a party of little people who stole his horse, tried to get him drunk and set upon him; by a giant trapped in a swamp who told him his quest was pointless; and, finally, by a phiosophical crow named Hugi who tried to convince him that it was just his ego striving against illusion and hindering his oneness with the Absolute. He finally stumped Hugi, and he flew away. As Corwin approached Chaos, the terrain became more difficult and misty. Out of the fog emerged the form of a large animal.

The animal is a talking jackal who claims to be a fan of the Amberites. Corwin asks him directions to the Courts of Chaos from the valley they are in. The jackal leads him to the entrance to a tunnel leading out of the valley. But Corwin realizes, too late, that the "tunnel" is actually just a cave, and the floor is strewn with bones. He and the jackal fight, and Corwin kills it with Greyswandir.

Corwin chooses a direction and climbs out of the valley, and he finds himself under the wild two-tone sky from his first visit to the Courts of Chaos. Another animal emerges from the fog, but this time it's just Hugi again.

The terrain Corwin has climbed to is a vast wasteland at least 40 miles across. Behind him, the storm of unravelling Shadow still advances. To the left is the black road, indicating that Brand was right, and Oberon has indeed failed in his task of repairing the primal Pattern in Amber. Corwin cannot go forward and he cannot retreat. He decides that his only option is to attempt to create a new Pattern himself, right where he is. When Hugi tries again to convince him that his plan is merely his ego striving after illusion, Corwin tears his head off.

"I'll see you eat crow first," are Hugi's last words. Corwin's answer to his Hindu philosophy is concise, albeit in a "thus I refute Berkeley" kind of way. I wonder if Corwin was hungry?

This is a short and relatively eventless chapter, albeit one that sets up major events later in the novel. Corwin argued with Brand about what might happen if a new Pattern was created, and I guess we're about to find out.

The Courts of Chaos, chapter 7

2024-09-19T09:00:00.009-04:00

As part of Oberon's plan to repair the primal Pattern in Amber, he tasked Corwin with riding as quickly as possible through Shadow from Amber to Chaos. As he did so, he was waylaid twice by Brand trying to persuade him to surrender the Jewel of Judgment. He then narrowly escaped a group of little people who tricked him into drinking with him in their underground hall, and then a third confrontation with Brand in which he tried to kill Corwin with a crossbow, but mortally wounded his horse, Star, instead. Corwin was then rescued by his bloodbird, who pecked out Brand's eye before they both disappeared.

Chapter 7 is heavy on dialogue and philosophical ruminations, so I'm going to approach it a bit differently, by interleaving my own commentary with the plot summary.

After being forced to dispatch Star, Corwin continues his journey to Chaos on foot. He arrives at a valley full of coloured fog. He cuts himself a walking stick from an ancient tree. The tree is sentient and scolds him, but recognizes the Jewel of Judgment, momentarily mistaking Corwin for Oberon, then gives him its blessing to keep the staff.

The tree calls itself "Ygg." Clearly it's meant to represent Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse mythology. "Ygg" itself is one of the names of Odin, and "Yggdrasil" means "Ygg's horse," a kenning¹ for "Ygg's gallows," because Odin sacrificed himself by hanging himself from the World Tree.

Yggdrasil is a kind of cosmic axis connecting nine worlds through its roots and branches. The parallel with Amber, Chaos, and Shadow, with their interconnected realities, seems obvious. I wonder whether there's an allusion to the nine worlds in the "nine princes in Amber." Brand and Corwin wondered a few chapters back what would happen if they each created their own intact Pattern. What would happen with nine of them?

Ygg was planted by Oberon as a boundary between Order and Chaos. In passing the tree, Corwin has crossed from one realm to another. Amber is the focus of all the realities Corwin has experienced. Is Ygg perhaps another such focus?

While the mythical Yggdrasil is not sentient in the conventional sense, Ygg talks. I am reminded most of the trees in The Wizard of Oz that tell Dorothy and the Scarecrow off when they try to pick some apples. I doubt Zelazny had The Wizard of Oz specifically in mind, but it does strike me as a hint that, just as the movie took place in a dream, the realm Corwin is entering is becoming more and more dreamlike as he progresses.

As Corwin continues his hike, he meets a black bird named Hugi, who knows Corwin because he has been waiting there for him "since the beginning of Time," which of course runs differently there.

Again in Norse mythology, two crows, Huginn and Muninn, travel to and fro in Midgard (Earth) to bring intelligence to Odin. Hugi is Huginn, which means "thought." Is there a Muninn ("memory") as well? Or an Odin-figure that they report to, and if so, who is it?

Corwin comes across a giant trapped in a bog with only his head above the surface. Corwin offers to help him escape, but the Head wants pity, not help, and refuses his assistance. The Head advises him not to bother continuing on his quest to stop Chaos; he wants "the whole works"—all of Shadow—to come to an end. Corwin rejects this nihilistic outlook, and they leave him behind.

Hugi and Corwin walk on, still talking philosophy. The Head's problem, Hugi says, is

proceeding incorrectly by holding the world responsible for his own failings.… The whole problem lies with the self, the ego, and its involvement with the world on the one hand and the Absolute on the other.… One needs to fix one’s vision firmly on the Absolute and learn to ignore the mirages, the illusions, the fake sense of identity which sets one apart as a false island of consciousness.

Ironically, the crow from Norse legend is a Hindu. Just as Corwin has used the power of the Jewel to create a (temporary) island of stability in the midst of chaos, an individual's ego creates a "false island of consciousness" (Ahamkara) that isolates him from the true Self, or Atman. He needs to ignore the false perceptions and illusions of the world of phenomena (Maya) that distract him from the deeper truth of his deeper connection with the Absolute (Brahman).

This would seem to run opposite to Corwin's ruminations about solipsism in chapter 6. Solipsism says "only I exist"; Hugi says the "I" is an illusion, and the true Self is but one part of the Absolute. On the other hand, it seems to lead to the same place that the Head was; by refusing Corwin's help out of the swamp, he has ceased from striving, and, in the words of Jars of Clay, "become[s] one with the mud."²

Just as he rejects the Head's nihilism, Corwin rejects Hugi's Hinduism. He pursues his own ideals, by which he means principles worth fighting for. He is not an idealist.

As the trail continues, they come across a group of human-like folk dancing to music played on stringed instruments, though by invisible musicians. Hugi calls them "the spirits of Time," dancing to celebrate Corwin's passage, though they anticipate his failure. While they are insubstantial and appear not to see Corwin, one woman drops his emblem, a silver rose, at his feet, and he picks it up and wears it on his coat. Their cheering him on, it seems, would put the lie to Hugi's "futilitarianism," as Corwin later calls it. These timeless spirits seem to think his quest is worth the effort.

Corwin and Hugi continue on their journey, which is becoming more difficult, and Corwin is using the Jewel more frequently to assist him. As they rest, Hugi compliments Corwin's persistence. When Hugi again tries to raise the futility of striving, Corwin dismisses his philosophy as "sophomore." He has lived too long not to have contemplated these questions already. (I wonder if, during 400 years of exile on Earth, he ever visited India and had this discussion with a swami?) He points out the contradictory position Hugi is in: he is striving to persuade Corwin's ego rather than continue on his journey to join the Absolute. Either that, or he doesn't believe it at all and is just trying to hold Corwin up. Hugi flies away, apparently stumped by this gotcha.

Many forces have, in fact, been trying to hold Corwin back. Of course, this isn't suprising. You can't really have fiction without conflict. But this middle part of The Courts of Chaos is all about Corwin's quest to reach Chaos, and so far he's been hindered by the environment and his own self-doubts; Brand, who tried to kill him; the leprechauns who abducted his horse; Lady, who tried to seduce him; and, finally, the Head, who tried to persuade him that the whole endeavour was pointless. At this point, it feels like Hugi is actually on his side, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out he's an adversary sent to convince Corwin that his striving is futile. But Corwin is, as Hugi says, persistent in striving for his own ideals.

So far, this chapter has been the most philosophical in the entire series. I would have been be interested in knowing where Roger Zelazny himself came down on these questions. On the one hand, in his other works, he makes liberal use of Eastern religious themes (see, in particular, Lord of Light). On the other, he draws from many mythologies, and was himself a lapsed Catholic who no longer identified with any organized religion, and I've not seen any suggestion he discarded a Western worldview for an Eastern one. Corwin's refutation of Hugi would seem to represent the victory of Western liberalism over Eastern idealism.

Seeing what seems like familiar terrain, Corwin wonders if he's going in circles. He stops and tries casting his fortune with his card deck. This is the second or third time he's done so. It hasn't been explicitly stated, but does tarot reading actually work in this world? His cards are, after all, magical.

Corwin feels the Jewel's slowdown effect, hinting at imminent danger. A large animal like a dog emerges from the fog.

Footnotes

¹ Margin-whisper: A kenning is a figure of speech in which a more expressive phrase is substituted for an ordinary one. Kennings are most famously used in Beowulf, which, for example, uses the kenning "whale-road" for the sea.

² Jars of Clay, "Flood," track 8 on Jars of Clay, Essential 01241-41580-2, 1995, compact disc.