Posted by Rodger Whitlock on June 30, 1999 at 09:31:30:
In Reply to: Now you see them, now you don't posted by MikeE on June 30, 1999 at 06:33:36:
MikeE wrote:
> There is one aspect of Vance's stories that I don't think has
> been examined in these posts yet. I have been struck over the
> years by the repeated extermination or hard use of children and
> young love interests. Just off the top of my head, I can think
> of being captivated right off the bat in Lyonesse by the wist-
> ful young girl in the cold surroundings of her life. Whoops
> Dead. Then later we find children being eaten and raped by a
> Giant. In various places in the Alastor Cluster, we find a 10
> or 11 year old girl being dragged off by people to turn her into
> bonter, children being dragged under water by native amphibians,
> etc. In the Demon Princes, we have children being rendered
> down to create waxy nodules for longevity. Let's see, in Ara-
> minta Station, we have a captivating young girl being shipped
> off world in a wine cask. In the Planet of Adventure we have
> two sweet children being savaged and killed by an odious thug,
> and in the Demon Princes again, we have children kidnapped and
> sold into slavery every which way. Then there was a foot note
> in Night Lamp (I think) about a notorious villian who kipnapped
> a number or beautiful girls and bred them and then bred his
> children by them and then their children. I seem to recall
> others, and it might be interesting to develop a complete list.
> This has been an effective slap in the face for me each time I
> read about one of these atrocities. Is this a literary device
> to shock, or is Vance trying to tell us something about the
> cruelty of existence?
It's not "the cruelty of existence" that JV has explicated, but "human nature."
It's very difficult for those of us living in wealthy First World countries to appreciate just how awful life is elsewhere and how awful it used to be everywhere. Slavery, murder, horrible crimes of all types are far more typical of human existence than peace and quiet.
JV's fictional settings echo travellers' descriptions of life in Western China in premodern times, for example, where many different cultural groups met and mingled -- in a state of truly Vancean mutual detestation. Or look at the horrors in former Yugoslavia, if you want a more modern example.
Another data point can be found in Grimm's fairy tales, full of blood, gore, evil stepmothers, red-hot iron dancing slippers, ogres devouring children, and every other imaginable horror.
Yet another data point can be found in any good, non-idealized description of life in classical Greece and Rome. Slavery; starving people to death as a form of punishment; castration of adult men to create sterile gigolos. *Not* a pretty picture!
It's not a nice world out there, never has been, and JV knows this. Perhaps we should be amazed that his books are as mild mannered as they are.