On Port Eternity.
An interview I did:
by CJ | Mar 22, 2011 | Journal | 14 comments
14 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Books
- spoiler potential: caution: book questions.
- Bibliography
- Alliance-Union Guidebook
- Foreigner Guidebook.
- Foreigner Guidebook.
- Gene Wars Universe: Spoiler Alert
- The Map Room
- Book Discussion: all books: spoiler alert in effect…
- Fantasy books: Spoiler alert.
- About the Foreigner series: Spoiler alerts
- Foreigner Series: Spoiler Alerts: Page 2
- WHO’S WHO in Foreigner
Archives
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
By the way, The Dragon Page Cover to Cover podcast had an interview with Patricia Briggs in their latest episode. I’ll get to listen this week.
[quote=”CJC”]I don’t, for instance, approve of fantasy that attempts to go back and rewrite the Middle Ages until it conforms to political correctness in the twentieth century. That removes all the benefit from reading the story. If you don’t understand other people in their time and why they did what they did, then you don’t understand your own past. And when you lose your past, you lose some potential for your own future.[/quote]
Precisely the problem, IMHO, with the recent Robin Hood movie’s ending. (The Russell Crowe version.) While otherwise, it was enjoyable with some nice points, the Normans and Saxons of 12th Century England just would not have thought in quite that way, if the idea even occurred to them. Clearly, they had some ideas toward that, or things like the Magna Carta and the Robin Hood story wouldn’t have come about, but a fullly modern, or at least 1776 style take on it…not in the 1100’s or 1200’s.
My college English prof gave very brief time to talk about the pre-Medieval roots of the Arthurian cycles, in Saxon and Breton and possibly earlier roots, but not much specifically. He did, however, make sure we did a little in Middle English reading and listening, and a tiny bit of Old English speech. — Later ran into him dressed as a wizard at the Texas Renaissance Fair. 🙂
Gosh, it’s been over 12 years since I read Port Eternity and Voyager in Night. Great books. About time to reread.
Back a hundred years ago when I was in college I took a course in the Arthurian tradition, in which we read different iterations of the story over the centuries, ending up with T. S. White. Port Eternity would be a worthy addition to that syllabus, for all the reasons you discuss in the interview (which was fascinating, thanks for the link!).
I was never able to read Port Eternity because I could never get past my prejudice concerning the AZI. I think that I will revisit it now.
I have felt that the Arthurian legends were a deliberate attempt of the French speaking Kings of England to woo their conquered populations.
Very enjoyable interview. Now I have to dig up my copy and reread! 😀
OTS: I just received an email from B&N that Betrayer is in the mail! 🙂 😀 😆
PS Have I said how much I *like* the preview button?
I found this recently when I was looking for Rosemary Sutcliff commentary – The Eagle has driven me to re-reading the Dolphin Ring cycle, and Sword at Sunset is a part of that. Port Eternity grabbed me when it first appeared – watching the azi alter their roles while maintaining their basic character, and seeing the Arthurian tropes in new circumstances was fascinating. Your azi have always interested me – slavery, and lack of power, but with deep conviction, and knowing their place in the world – no ambitions to gain control, but deep sense of responsibility, and knowing that they can control some outcome.
I loved Sword at Sunset when I read it many years ago. I did not even know that it was part of a series. It appears that there are eight books in the cycle and that they are spaced generations apart; so, Sword stands quite well on its own and the others probably do, too. I shall have to search them out.
That’s the umpteenth recommendation I’ve had to read Mary Renault’s books. Methinks perhaps I should. I don’t recall ever reading anything by Rosemary Sutcliff, but I’ll look her up.
CJ, I found your interview really of interest for how you see these medieval women, both in terms of their roles as dramatic characters, story-wise, and as exemplars of how medieval women either actually were, or how society viewed them. The interest for me is because you like strong women characters, women who think and act for themselves and their relations and their interests. Whereas, most women in the Middle Ages, unless they were fortunate enough to be in power themselves, as noblewomen, rarely had much chance to be themselves, to be leading women in their communities or homes or…in pretty much any sense, taken as equal with the men. So the contrast, how a medieval woman might get to be herself or pursue a fulfilling life, is of interest.
Heh, and that’s speaking as a modern man who is the product of a modern woman and a (mostly) modern man. (My dad specifically said, more than once, to me, that he did not *want* a woman who’d be a doormat; he *liked* the challenge (mostly). LOL, well, my mom certainly wasn’t ever a doormat. 😉 )
For that matter, it puzzles me how men could feel truly free or fulfilled, in such a limiting system as feudalism and the social structures then. Yet it worked in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, regardless, and it holds a certain fascination to modern people.
(Then again, I can see marked differences in my grandparents’ (both sides) generation’s modes of thinking, their expectations and world-views, that also seem very…I suppose “old-fashioned” is the way to put it.)
Anyway, great article; thanks for sharing.
For a mediaeval woman, try Eleanor of Aquitaine, or the Beaumonts—and if you want more real women, try Merovingian history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunhilda_of_Austrasia —no slouch, when it came to world domination. If you can believe all the charts, which can be dubious, she’s my 35th-great-grandmother.
Sgt Saturn – I recommend you start with Eagle of the Ninth – it’s the first book in the cycle, and should be easy to find because the current movie The Eagle is based on it. The novels do stand alone; The Lantern Bearers, the third in the cycle, is related to Sword at Sunset, which follows it directly, but the principal character in Lantern is Aquila, a minor character in Sword. Most of Sutcliff’s books were written as YA novels,but they read well to adults. You might also like Mark of the Horse Lord, not a Dolphin Ring book, but possibly close to Sword at Sunset in theme.
Arethusa, is The Eagle out? Does it have any degree at all of faithfulness to the book? I was so put off by the trailer that I lost interest in it, but if it’s better (i.e. more Sutcliffe-ian) than the trailer made it seem, I should look it up.
On another topic, I see that Judge Chin disallowed the Amended Google Settlement. Now we see where they go from there….
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20045967-36.html?tag=topStories1
I haven’t read the decision yet, but Judge Chin is a very good judge. Very good. I’ve known him for 32 years and hold him in extremely high personal and professional regard. From the press I saw on the decision, he was motivated by concern for the authors.
The Eagle movie has quite a few changes from the book – it opened in the US in February and has been and gone in my town. Most of the early changes I could accept, and some made sense for the needs of the movie. After Marcus and Esca cross the Wall things change quite a bit and not for the better. The end of the race back to the Wall is very poor, in my opinion, as is the disposal of the Eagle. Guern is poorly handled as well. I had to see the movie because anyone making a movie of a Sutcliff book deserves my support in the attempt. It was beautifully set and the props looked good to me. The filming of the countryside in Scotland was fine – it felt like the book in the focus on landscape and living it. The motives were shifted to make Britons and Romans simply enemies – no sense of the blend that Sutcliff presents.
A: we all know king arthur was just a novel?
B: good for the judge google was getting way too sneaky
C: hurry those foreigner books along lol