Gregg-Parmentier@UIowa.edu © 1996 Gregg Parmentier 2018 Waterfront Dr #137 Iowa City, IA 52240 ************************************ The Vance Phile can be freely copied as long as it is unchanged and this and all other copyright notices are included. ************************************
I've got to start right off with an OOPS. I don't know where my head was, but when I was listing writers both influenced by, and in the style of, Jack Vance, I really should have remembered to mention Larry Tritten, especially since I reprinted one of his stories here in these pages! Sorry guy. Three chapters of a Jack Vance pastiche he has written have appeared in F&SF, July 1987, Amazing Stories, November 1991, and Sword and Sorceress XI.
As long as I'm doing OOPS's, back in an early issue, Hans ter Horst commented that the translation of Throy was not as good as the other translations of Annemarie van Ewyck. In correspondence with him since then, he has said that the problem was not with the translation, but with the book being weaker than the first two Cadwal Books. I've been remiss in not getting this clarification into the Phile.
Now to new book information. The Dutch translation of Nightlamp, called Nachtlamp, came out last month, it is translated by Annemarie van Ewyck, who was interviewed for this issue of the Vance Phile. The Underwood Books edition is to ship later this month. The address for Underwood books is PO Box 1607, Grass Valley, CA 95945. Their fax number is (916) 274-7997. The price is $60 + $4 shipping. This is the second time a Dutch edition of a Vance book came out before any English language edition. The first time was The Face.
Jerry Hewett informs me that the Easton Press is planning an edition of The Dying Earth in their Masterpieces of Fantasy series. They are at 47 Richards Ave, Norwalk, CT, 06857. 800-367-4534 for subscription info, 800-243-5160 for customer service.
Back to authors influenced by Vance. I got a note from L. Warren Douglas, who dedicated his first book to Vance. He describes his Arbiter series of books as "loosely conceived to resemble the Alastor Cluster books, with the Arbiter a slightly more involved version of the Connatic." He also pointedly said, "I didn't dare try to imitate him." He also informs me that two of Vance's major influences are G. K. Chesterton and P. G. Wodehouse.
On an unfortunate note, Leon J. Janzen is busy with his Disney 'zine, and so can't get time to do an article in his Elusive Volumes of Jack Vance series this issue. He hopes to have an article ready for Issue #8.
On a brighter note, Neil Newton, who did one of those wonderful treatments of Emphyrio last issue, has agreed to make that the first of a series of articles called Vance and the Hero. This month he gives us a wonderful effort toward Trullion: Alastor 2262. As one of my proof-readers put it: "This is the way the articles should be. For those that have read the story recently, it should provide echoes ('oh, yeah, I see what he means'). For those that haven't read it, or who have forgotten, you would say 'hey, this may be worth a reread'."
For those of you who don't know already, Remy Wetzels has moved the Vance Archive web page, it can now be accessed at http://www.hw.nl/~Remy/.
Mike Berro has a web page containing Vance stuff, including scans of pages from a Vance manuscript, that of Maske: Thaery. He has mirrored the html version of the Vance Phile done by Remy Wetzels, and he gives links for lots of net book sellers and other pages of interest to Vance fans. The url for his page is: http://www.massmedia.com/~mikeb/jvm/.
Peter Booth has written an interesting essay which is accessible at the url: http://www.ar.com.au/~syzygy/vance.html Give it a look.
Last but not least, a recent issue of Aberrations magazine (#36) has a small interview with Vance. To receive a copy in the US send $4.50 to "Aberrations", PO Box 460430, San Francisco, CA 94146.
"Russell's comments in his review are correct, if obscure. If you look carefully, you will find that the pagination quoted for M80ab and M81ab are both incorrect."In my final draft I had skipped over the separate citations for each of the articles that appeared in JV: a mistake that was caught and corrected by the editors at The Borgo Press. My guess is that these two particular errors are the unexpected result of a global search-and-replace performed sometime after the entries were added. The citations for both of these entries should be changed to reflect the same page numbers as their root citations.
I had the pleasure of corresponding recently with Arthur Cunningham, one of the two founders of Kinnell Publications, the people responsible for publishing the first hardcover editions of The Madman Theory and A Room To Die In. Arthur let me know that I had incorrectly reported the number of copies printed for both editions (1500 instead of 1000), and filled me in on some of the history behind the two dustjackets printed for The Madman Theory:
"Your comments re the Kinnell titles prompted some memories of those early days. Neither I nor Richard Lewis my business partner in Kinnell had much of a clue about how to publish a book. One of the mistakes we made (a common one; I think U/M did the same with TDE in 1976) was not to ask for extra jackets for our first book, ARTDI. Thus there never were any spare jackets for this title. In addition, many of the jackets that were printed were out of register and slightly blurred. So, if you have a copy without a blurred jacket you are one of the lucky ones!"
"We printed 1500 copies of ARTDI and 1500 also of TMT. The error on the jacket arose because we got the printer to design the jacket rather than a designer (as we did for all the later books). We simply didn't realise the work that went in to jacket design and thought if we gave the printer the picture and told him what words we wanted, then that was it. Considering our ignorance, the printers did a good job, but one of the mistakes we made was to give them the title over the phone -- hence, The Mad Man Theory. When I saw the advance copies I nearly fainted... As I remember it, we sent out the original jacket with orders for libraries and wholesalers, but substituted the corrected jacket on copies going into the sf community -- specialist bookshops etc. I may be wrong on this as it is nearly ten years ago now."Something I keep meaning to mention in this column has to do with the "Vance Trading List" that I've been sending out for the past year to Vance fans around the world: if you send me a box of books *PLEASE!* remember to put your return address on it somewhere!!! I've received at least six packages containing Vance paperbacks that didn't have a return address, so I unfortunately don't have any idea whom I should be sending a "thank you" note to!
As usual, I'm always on the lookout for any relevant information and assistance regarding this project. Correspondence should be addressed to:
Jerry Hewett
30712 Doral Ct.
Temecula, CA 92592 (USA)
Internet: jhewett@ix.netcom.com
CIS: 75267,1726
Jerry H.
11FEB96
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ALL BRITISH EDITION
Strange how this worked out, eh? As I started sifting through the errata reports and correspondence it struck me that I had two choice tidbits from a British publisher and a British bibliographer... so why not put together an "All British" column!
The information below comes from British editions I've added to my collection since the publication of The Work of Jack Vance, and they flesh out the rather sparse descriptions in the bibliography for these particular entries. Having the books at hand also revealed a major sequencing error for The Dragon Masters that requires extensive corrections.
TO LIVE FOREVER A4i. London: Grafton Books #07275-6, November 1987, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 7 unnumbered + 249, as follows: biography, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; [publishers address, 3 lines] / Published by Grafton Books 1987 / First published in Great Britain by / Sphere Books Ltd 1976 / Copyright (C) Jack Vance 1956 / ISBN 0-586-07275-6 / [publishers statement, 8 lines] / [disclaimer, 8 lines] /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-253; blank, p. [254]; other Grafton titles, p. [255]; Grafton order form, p. [256]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11.25 cms, with cover art by Tony Roberts. Issued at 2.95. THE MAN IN THE CAGE A10d. London: Mayflower Books #A6, October 1961, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 4 unnumbered + 156, as follows: synopsis, p. [1]; THE MAN IN THE CAGE / by John Vance / First published by T.V. Boardman Ltd. / Published as a Mayflower Paperback, October, 1961 / [disclaimer, 3 lines, surrounded by a box] / [publishers address, 4 lines] /, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; blank, p. [4]; text, p. 5-160. BINDING: 18.25 x 11.5 cms, with cover art by Chantrell. Issued at 2s/6d. THE DRAGON MASTERS Strike entry (A11g), move entries (A11h) through (A11o) up by one letter, with the following three entries replacing entries (A11eb) and (A11ec). A11eb. London: Mayflower Books #12100-4, November 1972, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 12 unnumbered + 116, as follows: excerpt, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; Granada Publishing Limited / Published in 1972 by Mayflower Books Ltd / [publishers address, 1 line] / First published in Great Britain by / Dobson Books Limited 1965 / Copyright (C) Galaxy Publishing Incorporated 1962 / [publishers statement, 4 lines] / [disclaimer, 12 lines] /, p. [4]; half title, p. [5]; blank, p. [6]; text, p. 7-[123]; blank, p. [124]; other Mayflower titles, p. [125-128]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by ____. Issued at 30p. NOTES: Text offset from the Panther #02186-8 plates (A11e). A11ec. London: Panther Books #02186-8, May 1985, paper. [British] COLLATION: same as (A11eb), with changes as follows: about the author, p. [1]; [publishers address, 3 lines] / Published by Panther Books 1972 / Reprinted 1985 / First published in Great Britain by / Dobson Books Limited 1965 / Copyright (C) Galaxy Publishing Incorporated 1962 / ISBN 0-586-02186-8 / [publishers statement, 3 lines] / [disclaimer, 13 lines] /, p. [4]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11.25 cms, with cover art by Geoff Taylor. Issued at 1.95. NOTES: Text offset from the Panther #02186-8 edition (A11e). A11ed. London: Grafton Books #02186-8, 1986, paper. [British] COLLATION: same as (A11ec), with changes as follows: Published by Grafton Books 1972 / Reprinted 1985, 1986 /, p. [4]. BINDING: same as (A11ec). Issued at 1.95. NOTES: Text offset from the Panther #02186-8 edition (A11e). THE STAR KING A15dc. as: Star King. London: Mayflower Books #12102-0, September 1973. paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 9 unnumbered + 199, as follows: about the author, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; Granada Publishing Limited / Published in 1973 by Mayflower Books Ltd / [publishers address, 1 line] / First published in Great Britain by / Dobson Books Ltd 1966 / Published by Panther Books Ltd 1968 / Reprinted 1969 / Copyright (C) Jack Vance 1964 / [acknowledgments, 3 lines] / [publishers statement, 4 lines] / [disclaimer, 12 lines] /, p. [4]; half title, p. [5]; blank, p. [6]; text, p. 7-[206]; blank, p. [207]; other Mayflower titles, p. [208]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by ____. Issued at 35p. A15j. London: Coronet Books #25394-0, May 1980, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 4 unnumbered + 156, as follows: excerpt, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; Copyright (C) 1964 by Jack Vance / [acknowledgment, 4 lines] / First published in Great Britain / 1966 by Dobson Books Ltd. / (it) Coronet edition 1980 (it) / [underline] / [disclaimer, 11 lines] / [publishers statement, 8 lines] / ISBN 0 340 25394 0 /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-160. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by ____. Issued at 85p. NOTES: Text offset from the DAW UE1402 plates (A15i). THE KILLING MACHINE A17k. London: Coronet Books #25395-9, May 1980, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 5 unnumbered + 155, as follows: excerpt, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; Copyright (C) 1964 by Jack Vance / First published in Great Britain / 1967 by Dobson Books Ltd. / (it) Coronet edition 1980 (it) / [underline] / [disclaimer, 11 lines] / [publishers address, 8 lines] / ISBN 0 340 25395 9 /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-159; other Coronet titles, p. [160]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by ____. Issued at 85p. NOTES: Text offset from the DAW UE1409 plates (A11i). A17p. London: Grafton Books #07308-6, March 1988, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 6 unnumbered + 202, as follows: about the author, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; [publishers address, 3 lines] / Published by Grafton Books 1988 / First published in Great Britain by / Dobson Books 1967 / Copyright (C) Jack Vance 1964 / ISBN 0-586-07308-6 / [publishers statement, 3 lines] / [disclaimer, 13 lines] /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-206; blank, p. [207-208]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by Chris Foss. Issued at 2.50. THE PALACE OF LOVE A31j. London: Grafton 07309-4, May 1988, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 8 unnumbered + 232, as follows: about the author, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; [publishers address, 3 lines] / Published by Grafton Books 1988 / First published in Great Britain by / Dobson Books Ltd 1968 / Copyright (C) Jack Vance 1967 / ISBN 0-586-07309-4 / [publishers statement, 3 lines] / [disclaimer, 13 lines] /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-236; blank, p. [237]; other Grafton titles, p. [238-240]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by Chris Foss. Issued at 2.95. EMPHYRIO A34h. London: Coronet #26097-1, November 1980, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 6 unnumbered + 208, as follows: synopsis, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; Copyright (C) 1969 by Jack Vance / First published in the United States 1979 / by Daw Books / (it) Coronet edition 1980 (it) / [cataloging data, 5 lines] / ISBN 0-340-26097-1 / [underline] / [disclaimer, 11 lines] / [publishers statement, 8 lines] /, p. [4]; map, p. [5]; blank, p. [6]; text, p. 7-222; other titles, p. [223-224]. BINDING: 17.75 x 11 cms, with cover art by Fox. Issued at 1.10. NOTES: Text offset from the DAW UE1504 plates (A34g). EIGHT FANTASMS AND MAGICS A37cb. as: Fantasms & Magics. London: Grafton #12498-4, December 1987, paper. [British] COLLATION: same as (A37c), with changes as follows: [publishers address, 3 lines] / Published by Grafton Books 1978 / Reprinted 1987 / Copyright (C) Jack Vance 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1957, / 1958, 1969 / ISBN 0-583-12498-4 / [publishers statement, 3 lines] / [disclaimer, 14 lines] /, p. [4]. BINDING: 18 x 11.25 cms, with cover art by Peter Elson. Issued at 2.50. NOTES: Text offset from the Granada #12498-4 plates (A37c). This edition omits "Telek" and "Cil". THE BRAVE FREE MEN A42j. London: Victor Gollancz #04053-X, August 1987, paper. [British] COLLATION: p. 4 unnumbered + 220, as follows: excerpt, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; [publishers statement, 2 lines] / First published in Great Britain 1975 / by Coronet Books / First VGSF edition 1987 / Copyright (C) 1972 by Jack Vance / [cataloging data, 5 lines] / ISBN 0-575-04053-X / [publishers statement, 2 lines] / [disclaimer, 6 lines] /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-224. BINDING: 17.75 x 11.25 cms, with cover art by Mark Salwowski. Issued at 2.50. NOTES: Text offset from the Coronet Books #19828-1 plates (A42b). THE FACE A61d. London: Dennis Dobson, May 1980, cloth. [British] COLLATION: p. 4 unnumbered + 220, as follows: excerpt, p. [1]; other titles, p. [2]; title page, p. [3]; COPYRIGHT (C) 1979 BY JACK VANCE / All Rights Reserved / First published in Great Britain in 1980 / by Dobson Books Ltd, 80 Kensington Church Street, / London W8 4BZ / [publishers statement, 2 lines] / ISBN 0 234 72178 2 /, p. [4]; text, p. 5-224. BINDING: 21 x 13.5 cms, black paper over boards. The spine is printed in silver, and reads: THE FACE / VANCE / Dobson Science Fiction. Dust jacket art by Richard Weaver. White end papers, with all edges trimmed. Issued at 5.25. Later re-priced at 6.95 (1988). NOTES: Text offset from the DAW UJ1498 plates (A61b).
by Neil Newton
Certainly, Vance has created a number of characters who are less than humble. Cugel, of the Dying Earth Series and the saga that bears his name, is a ne'er-do-well and a braggart. Apollon Zamp of Showboat World is a foppish, self-absorbed fool. Yet these characters, clearly, are humorous devices of farcically legendary proportions, designed to heighten a sense of drama. Real Vancian heroes, the ones who appeal to us most, are unprepossessing people; despite a life of privilege or toil, they find the basis of their existence as puzzling as anyone else. Gender is no barrier to this syndrome; Schaine Madduc of The Gray Prince, one of Vance's few central female characters, is a study in introspection, self-doubt and conflicting impulses.
It is harder to find a character that fits this mold better than Glinnes Hulden of Trullion: Alastor 2262. To him, any discussion of his relative importance in the scheme of things would seem a ludicrous exercise. Coming from a society that emphasizes ease and generosity above all, the word ambition is hardly a part of his vocabulary.
Unlike Ghyl Tarvoke of Emphyrio, whose deeds are epic and shape the lives of millions of people, Glinnes Hulden represents that variety of hero whose heroism derives from the fact that he is an unshakably fair and decent man. Though his world is tumultuous, with the concepts of right and wrong somewhat blurred, he maintains his sense of ethics and allows it to guide his actions. In Vance's stories, where the meaning of ethics often seems to be in the eye of the beholder, it is through such a hero that we derive a sense of moral grounding; Vance's greatest heroes are people who can be trusted implicitly.
Glinnes Hulden's most fervent desire is to simply return to his home planet, after a long absence, to reclaim his family's legacy of land and his race's legacy of leisure and happiness. It's far from an unreasonable desire on the planet of Trullion, Alastor 2262. For generations beyond counting, the Trills have lived idyllic lives, sipping wine on a veranda, gazing at the stars with friends, playing a friendly but spirited game of hussade, or spending a day or two with a lover, ingesting half a tablet of the aphrodisiac cauch to enhance the experience.
Not much else is expected of a Trill, except for the occasional instance when a bit of extra money is needed and those occasions are rare. In such extreme cases, a Trill might be moved to gather and sell several bushels of fine apples or some equally arduous task. But such instances are few and far between and, in general, beneath the notice of the average Trill.
For Glinnes, his homecoming is especially poignant; he has spent ten long years away from home in the service of the Whelm. As the Alastor cluster's main military body, the Whelm is the primary source of order and discipline. Most important, the Whelm represents the ultimate sanction of the Connatic, a single man who holds sway over the cluster's five trillion inhabitants.
More to the point is that Glinnes has learned of his father's tragic and unexpected death. Seeing the underpinnings of his youth being pulled out from under him, he finds himself to be terribly homesick and resigns from the Whelm to return to his home, Rabendary Island.
He returns only to receive a new series of ugly shocks: his older brother Shira, the heir to Rabendary Island, has disappeared. Worse yet, in Shira's absence, his younger twin Glay has perversely sold a part of the Hulden's land holdings, Ambal Isle, to an unknown buyer. Seeing his family and his heritage fading away to dust and, reacting with the Trill's inherent love of ancestral land, Glinnes goes about regaining what is rightfully his.
As it turns out, sweeping and disturbing changes haven't isolated themselves to the small Island of Rabendary. In Glinnes' absence, the centuries of carefree existence seem to have, irrevocably, come to an end for the Trills. Eroding the peace of Trullion is a strange and unexpected revolt in the form of a social movement dubbed Fanscherade. Espousing a solemn doctrine of tireless industry and intellectual excellence, the Fanschers, in a few short years, have attracted a surprising number of young followers. As much as the ordinary Trill is spontaneous and hedonistic, the Fanschers are ascetic and driven. Openly contemptuous of Trill society but lacking concrete goals, they seem to achieve little except to challenge the basic tenets of Trill society.
Ironically, this far-reaching social rift has fallen directly into Glinnes Hulden's lap; it is to the head of the Fanchers, Julius Farfan, that Glinnes' brother Glay has given the money derived from the sale of Ambal Isle. Though the sale is illegal, lacking the current Squire of Rabendary's permission, Glinnes is hard pressed to prove fraud; his brother Shira, the ranking Hulden, is missing and can't be considered legally dead for years. Without proof of death Glinnes remains simply an inhabitant of the Hulden lands with no legal right to abrogate the sale.
Despairing of ever reclaiming his family's land, Glinnes begins to give up hope. That is until he encounters Lord Gensifer, a member of the local aristocracy, who has an apparently unsavory appetite for the game of Hussade. Though his interest in the game is genuine, it soon becomes apparent that Lord Gensifer is attempting to assemble a team of talented local players to replenish his rapidly diminishing funds. Glinnes, who has distinguished himself on the Hussade field both on Trullion and in the Whelm, is one of Gensifer's first choices.
In the end, Hussade is to become a means to an end for both men; for Gensifer it is a way of regaining his family fortune; for Glinnes, it is the only way to regain possession of Ambal Isle.
And so the stage is set. What follows is a typical Vancian combination of conspiracy and pyrotechnical cultural invention that characterize his writings. Vance's presentation of Trullion is as rich and complex as any other of his invented societies. The Trills are a gentle and appealing race, rarely moved to hostility or violence. An average Trill will display an expansive generosity with great ease and delights in parties where he is able to share his bounty with his neighbors. However, the same Trill can experience a sense of macabre delight in witnessing a criminal brutally executed on the prutanshyr, a particularly gruesome device. Another time, the same Trill can watch a game of hussade, the major sense of anticipation deriving from the knowledge that the final result will be the humiliation of one of two young women as she is denuded in front of a crowd of hundreds of people.
It might be said that, of all Vance's social inventions, Hussade is the most fascinating and elaborate. Societies, customs, mores: these are Vance's stock-in-trade. For the most part, these are merely alluded to in the course of a story. In Trullion, however, Vance takes special pains to elevate a purely fictitious game to the level of near-reality, providing it with a highly developed set of rules and strategies. The reader of Trullion is witness to a number of hussade matches, played from start to finish with intricate play by play detail. Though a seemingly trivial element in the story, the development of a game purely for the sake of verisimilitude is a deceptively impressive feat and an amazing example of Vance's level of concentration and dedication to his stories.
Hussade acts as connecting thread throughout the story of Trullion. Firstly it is one of the few violent counterpoints to the docile Trill character, second only to the prutanshyr, a barbaric execution device in which victims are boiled to death. But, in true Vancian fashion the thread of Hussade is tied in with other threads of social disintegration, deceit, and conspiracy; at the stories end we find an extraordinary connection between Lord Gensifer's unsavory interest in Hussade, the fraudulent sale of Ambal Isle, and Glinnes' inability to reclaim it.
Like Emphyrio and countless other Vance novels, Trullion gives us a glimpse of a seemingly stable society unraveling under the strain of internal pressures that seem to come about for no apparent reason. Unlike Emphyrio's Halma, a world that is placid, yet evil for its horribly oppressive nature, Trullion is a world that is truly nurturing to its inhabitants. It is this fact that makes the rise of Fanscherade so puzzling.
Considering its 1973 Copyright, it's tempting to see Trullion as a somewhat tongue in cheek reaction to the political and social movements of the 1960's. Certainly, placing the driven and essentially Calvinistic Fanschers in the role of the "radicals" is a blatant reversal of common experience. Whatever his reasoning Vance seems to be telling us, in books such as Trullion, Emphyrio, The Blue World, and To Live Forever, that any society, no matter how bountiful and pleasant, holds the seeds of its own demise in its very structure.
As a layer over the story of Trullion itself is a compelling element of subplot. Trullion is part of the Alastor series; all of the worlds described by Vance in this series exist within the Alastor Cluster, "a whorl of thirty thousand live stars in an irregular volume twenty to thirty light years in diameter." In broad Vancian scope, this cluster contains three thousand inhabited planets which, miraculously, share the same language and pay homage to one man: the Connatic.
Clearly it's no mean feat for one man to act as the nominal ruler of five trillion people. To maintain the illusion that this is possible, he walk a tightrope, playing many parts at once. The Connatic is a mysterious man: a tyrant, a detached bureaucrat, and a great humanitarian, seemingly in equal parts. To the inhabitants of the Cluster, he is severe and inflexible, wearing black at public functions to enhance this impression. However, this is merely a smoke-screen; a man of subtle intellect, the Connatic is keenly aware of the possibly disastrous effects of any action he might take. For this reason, he keeps his emotions on a tight rein to give the impression of a man whose actions are completely guided by cold, flawless logic.
In reality, the Connatic functions in a far less rigid manner; seeing his cluster as a system of unpredictable stresses and counter-stresses he treads with the care of a scientist in care of great, but fragile, experiment. Fearing that overt actions are more than likely to exacerbate a situation, he tends toward great restraint rather than action and will only apply force as it is needed. One of his favorite credos is: When in doubt, do nothing.
Here we see the Vancian view of human nature on a large scale; people are inherently unpredictable, they cannot be counted upon to use either reason or ethics as a basis for their behavior, and under certain stresses, even the sagest and most reasonable among us can behave in a manner totally contrary to his or her nature. On the other side of the coin, the average human can show a surprising level of courage and compassion; this is a resource that can only be prayed for, but not expected.
According to tradition, the Connatic will roam the cluster unannounced, occasionally supporting and rewarding a good Samaritan or personally setting a blatant injustice to rights. Though never mentioned outright, one of the minor characters in the story of Trullion is clearly the current Connatic, Orman Ursht. In a sense, though not a major figure in the story, the Connatic is, in the end, much more of a classic hero than Glinnes himself. Though he is initially detached from the growing tensions on Trullion, he eventually finds himself embroiled in the entire web of deceit and treachery. In the end it is he that finally brings the various threads of conspiracy to light.
The concept of Alastor is a perfect Vancian canvas; a mosaic of rich cultural traditions where conflict and change is inherent at the highest level, between societies, as well as at lower levels, within a culture itself. In the early DAW publication of Trullion, the cover art offers us an interesting representation of the Alastor Cluster. Behind characters representing the story of Trullion itself, we find a mosaic of 48 faces, each representing one possible race or region of the three thousand inhabited planets of the cluster. It is in this kind of culture building and, more to the point, in representations of the human psyche in a number of cultural settings, that Vance excels and shows the true level of his talent.
conducted by Hans Verkuil
HV: How did you get in touch with SF, translating SF and the Dutch fan organization NCSF?
I think I've been reading SF all my life. The very first story I remember reading was Gulliver's Travels. I was fascinated by the idea of islands floating in the air without any support. I asked how that was possible, but nobody could tell me and they said: "Well, this is just a tale." And I decided I liked that sort of tales. I was five years old at the time. That's when it started.HV: Isn't that a difficult book for a five year old?
Well, this was a children's version. But it had all the elements in it. And I liked it a lot. I've always been looking for that sort of stories. I did try to read some 'girls' stories when I grew up a little, and I disliked them intensely. I preferred Karl May. I liked boys stories most because something happened there, there was fun.HV: What was your first translation of SF?So I've been reading F & SF all my life. There wasn't very much of it at first, and I started reading what was being brought as SF. I was 14 or 15 and I found books with SF on the spine, English books: I couldn't get enough of them so I started reading translations, but I soon got fed up with translations. They were so awful.
Then I discovered there was fandom in Holland, and I wrote to them and I joined up as soon as I got the papers in, and that was how I found NCSF. I also found my husband to be there. When I complained to him about SF translations once too often, he said to me: "Why don't you do it yourself then, if you're so good." So I had to take up the challenge. I wrote to Spectrum and asked if I could translate SF for them, and they tried me out and were not dissatisfied. So that's how it started, in 1969.
"Vertrek van aankomst" by Harry Harrison ("One step from Earth"). A story collection about matter transmitters. That's the way it started. And it has never stopped.HV: Any idea how many books you've translated?
Taken all in all I think it's about 130, nearing 140 at the moment. There are some non-SF books amongst them, though.HV: What are your favorite authors to read and translate?
Favorite authors to be reading: that changes all the time. But there are some favorites, and I think that has to do with translating. I prefer British authors, I really love Christopher Priest, Robert Holdstock. I also love Tanith Lee, although she tends to purplish prose. She has a very good grasp on style and hardly ever goes over the edge, it's very finely honed. That's what I like, people who work with language and don't just dash off a story but build it up, make something of the language.HV: What is your best area of translating? Your specialty?And there are some minor authors that I like a lot, James Schmitz, I really liked translating him and I like to read him too. I loved the two books I did by Ursula LeGuin, that was fascinating: very clear style, like glass. I loved that. And Brian Aldiss. Also Gene Wolfe. I did the Shadow of the Torturer cycle and I really loved that. He knows how to work with the language, he knows how to mold it to what he wants to say.
I tend to prefer the British authors for translation, and I think that is because the style is much more European. The sentence building is closer to home, and their background as well. It's a way of thinking that's closer to me. I've never been to the United States, I read a lot from there, but I still think it's a bit alien to me in certain respects. Especially things like Cyperpunk. I don't think I could translate that.
Also I'm very, very bad at translating fights. I hate fighting, I hate violence and I'm very bad at translating books where there is a lot of violence and fights. I can deal with fights with cannons and things, you know, laser beams, but when it's personal fighting, hacking with swords, fistfights, I don't know how to deal with it, I don't know the proper expressions for it and I don't think I'll be able to learn.
I think I'm very good in translating fantasy because of the idiom. I like to search for proper Dutch words. Not words recently influenced by English or French. A word that to my mind sounds a little foreign has no place in a fantasy story that is historical, the old-fashioned, middle-agy sort of thing. I use old-fashioned Dutch words, Dutch verbs, nouns, constructions, syntax from way back when to create the fantastic atmosphere. And I think I'm pretty good at that.HV: That's probably why you also like translating Jack Vance, because he also uses a bit archaic words, even in his SF settings.
Yes, he does. I must say that he is careless. He uses one word and he uses another word another time. He's not very good in keeping things in order. Not the way Tolkien did, who kept track of everything he wrote and then checked it and checked it again, backwards and forwards. Jack Vance does not do this and it does make it a bit less exciting. You have to allow for mistakes he's making. I wouldn't say he is a bad writer, not at all! But that's just one of the things he doesn't do and I'm very particular. I'm sloppy in other things but not in translating.HV: How did you start translating Jack Vance?
It was offered to me. I never worked for Meulenhoff before, but then they had a lot of books coming out at the same time and they had seen my work and asked if I would do one for them, so I did and I got offered Vance at a certain point. I don't know why, it was offered to me and I said: "Well I'd like to try it for once." I liked it. And they have this policy of keeping the same translator for the same author, which is a good thing, that every publisher should do. If the translator is giving satisfaction, that is.HV: What was the first Jack Vance book you translated?So I started translating him and I stayed with him.
Oops. Let me have a look. It was Cugel gewroken (Cugel's Saga). And possibly that came from one story that was in that book: "The Bagful of Dreams." I translated that for Kees van Toorn's magazine, Orbit. Maybe they asked me because of that. I don't know. But that was what I started with, I remember. I had a lot of fun doing it.HV: Have you ever met Jack Vance, besides the Hillcon I convention?
Yes, he came to Holland and visited Meulenhoff and Meulenhoff invited some of the fan presses to talk to him, so we had a nice chat with him in Amsterdam. I wrote that up in Holland SF. Later at Hillcon I he was invited as GoH, so I met him there.HV: Do you think of problems in translating when you are reading a book in English for pleasure?
Yes I do. I'm not only a translator, I'm also a book reviewer. And I'm not able to read a book without making mental notes. This does not distract me from enjoying the book, mind you, although if it is a bad book and I read it for pleasure, I chuck it out. I have to read bad books as a reviewer and then I make lots of mental notes and I don't get any enjoyment from the book. When I read a book and I enjoy it I still keep my mind on it as a reviewer and translator. I cannot help that.HV: When you read a Dutch book which has been translated do you do the same?
Yes. When it is a good translation it gives you great joy. Then you read it and you come across a sentence and you say: "God, this is great, this is so beautifully done." It's not all the time, but you've just finished the chapter and you sit back and sigh and say: "This was great work, this reads beautifully." And that's a moment of great pleasure.HV: Do you have a lot of problems while translating a book, and more in particular Jack Vance books?If I have to read a translation that is badly done, I keep complaining and whining. Shouting out: "Look at this, listen to what he has done here, this is ridiculous, don't they have dictionaries!" and things like that.
I even do it while reading the newspaper. Newspapers get articles from other newspapers, they're syndicated. And sometimes it's from the English, and it's being translated at the newspaper office. People always think they know enough English to translate. One example: This was just before the OJ Simpson trial ended, there was a little piece in the paper saying that everybody was on tenterhooks and that the LA police had called out extra troops, because they were afraid of race riots. Then the article went on saying that some years ago they had terrible race riots when policemen pulled Rodney King out of his car and beat him up. What the newspaper said was: "when policemen beat up a motorcycle rider." The original article said motorist, and the stupid ass translated this as a motorcycle rider. Especially stupid since any journalist might have remembered, it's very recent after all. So this is the moment that I start screaming.
I remember a translation of a Jack Vance mystery that was part of the Ellery Queen series, where the translator translated the word 'rent' as 'rente' (interest). The sentence didn't make any sense at all.
That's what I always say, if you get a sentence that doesn't make sense, you did it wrong. You should think again, if what you type in Dutch is nonsense. It cannot have been nonsense originally. The author doesn't write nonsense, that's a premise. Any author may make a mistake or goof. But usually not in the way of writing nonsense. What he does is make a mistake in remembering things or give a wrong name, but an author doesn't write errant nonsense. The sentence should be logical, so that's what you depart from. And if what you write down is nonsense, you try to find out what was really there.
This is like the bow on the windshield: I read a story once many years ago, in the holidays. I picked up some books and they weren't very good, but I read them anyway, because I didn't have anything else. This was about a pilot and a struggling little aviation company and he met this rich girl and at the end of the story they get engaged and the rich girl gives him a small new airplane to work with. So he comes out on the field and he sees this airplane standing there with, as I said, a bow on the windscreen. You know, something made of ribbon with a knot. Well, this was translated into Dutch as a "boog op het windscherm". A "windscherm" is a windscreen you sit behind on the beach, but in vehicles it is called "voorruit" in Dutch. And a "boog" can mean an arch or a bow as in "bow and arrow".
I collect these stupidities to tell other people about translating.
There are problems, of course. There are authors that make mistakes and since, apart from the author, I think nobody gets this close to the book as the translator, I tend to notice them, and I tend to clear them up if I can without disturbing the rest of the text. Do it as gently as possible. I remember a Philip Jose Farmer book where a company of ten sets out to do something and they all die very violently, one after another. There is one chapter were nearly everybody dies. One person dies twice over. Well, that's not really possible, and since the second death was the more violent one, I just changed a few words around so that you could surmise that the first time he was merely stunned and not dead.HV: Do you give feedback to the author about these slips?I have translated several books by a very fine author for young people, but he makes mistakes as well. In two books he managed to have the sun set in the east, which is not really possible, so I changed that by changing the direction in which his protagonist was looking.
Jack Vance makes little slips like that, that is a problem. Any slip that he makes and that I don't notice a Jack Vance fan is bound to notice and credit to me. They will never believe that the great master can make a mistake. They will always think it was me. So I have to search them out and change things around without changing anything essential, just leaving out a word might be enough.
Like in the Lyonesse cycle where there are several conversations that are being repeated. Not verbatim, though the gist of the conversation is the same, but somebody is surprised at what they're hearing and this is ridiculous, you cannot have that twice between the same people. So I think I added, "He said again," or something like that. So that it becomes something that people might do in normal life, they might say things twice over, even if there is a week in between, they might come back to the subject and say it again. That's the way I save the authors face.
It's very difficult to compose a letter and put all this in and say in effect to the author, "you did this wrong, and that, and this cannot be, because..." It takes a lot of work and really, I need the time to do more translations because I try to live by it. I don't have the time to go into this. I'd love to sit down with an author and point out these things. With the author who had the sun set in the east I was able to talk to him about it. He has made another mistake recently and I'll be seeing him this month, I think, and I can tell him about it. But with authors living so far away it's very difficult.HV: So no exception is made for translators?Also it's very difficult to reach them. I once had a big problem. I wanted to ask something of Philip K. Dick who did a book together with Roger Zelazny, so I had to write to the agent. First I had to find out who the agent was and Spectrum wasn't too helpful. Then I wrote to the agent. The agent had to contact the author. And when I got my answer I had already delivered the typescript. There was no time to wait for it. I had made my decision, I didn't know what else to do. The publisher doesn't wait. You get three months to finish a book.
If you could call them, email them or whatever, you could ask them, but you cannot. They are well protected and I think there is cause for that because they are being plagued by fans and people who want to tell them how beautiful they are and how fantastic they are, or to get autographs and photographs, or they want to come and visit and show their manuscripts of stories.
The agent just protects his client. Regardless. They don't have time for one little translator in Holland. It was a bad experience with this agent. It discouraged me. Meulenhoff is a bit easier on that. I did a Bridget Wood translation recently and I wanted to ask her something especially important, so I got her address off Meulenhoff and wrote to her direct and she was kind enough to answer in time for me to put it in the book.HV: I guess it also depends on the author. I know Terry Pratchett, for example, is quite heavily involved in translations, often helps clarify things.
I know, Terry Pratchett is very accessible. Jack Vance is not accessible, I think. He keeps very much on his own. I mean, I can access Robert Holdstock, because he knows me. I know Christopher Priest and I can call them and say, "Hey, help me with this." And Brian Aldiss. He was very nice. I went to visit him when I did Helliconia and he showed me all the background information and the maps he made and not included, all the things he used to make the book and all the things I had questions about. And I told him about the way I translated and he said: "That's OK, please do it that way." That's helpful. British authors are accessible because they are only one Channel-hop away.HV: Is it difficult to read translations done by someone else without thinking about how you would have translated it better or differently?
No, it's not difficult. If it's well done, it's great. I enjoyed the Terry Pratchett translations, they are absolutely brilliant. If I don't have to, then I must say that I don't read translations. If only because that originals are usually cheaper compared to the Dutch translations.HV: If you have to translate a book from a certain author and other books of that author have been translated by someone else, do you read those translations?That's one reason. On the other hand I enjoy an author's style. You never know when you may be called upon to translate that author, so it comes in very handy if you already know what the style is.
Taking over translations is very difficult. If they are good, but also if they are bad. On the whole, I've got my own style of translating. It doesn't mean that I stamp my own style on the work, but I've got my own ways of translating things. And it is very difficult to fit into someone else's style. The author's style is one thing, and I can approach that, but to add another translator's style is hellish.HV: Did Meulenhoff also publish your translation of the first book?I did Tanith Lee's Stormlord, the first book had been translated by Pon Ruiter, and I won't say it was badly translated or anything, but when Meulenhoff decided to bring out the whole cycle I asked if I please could translate the first book as well. So I could do everything in the same style.
Yes. At Gradivus it was published as Heer der Stormen, with Meulenhoff it was published as Stormgebieder, because I got really sick and tired of "Heer."HV: If you want to read a Jack Vance book, do you read the original or the translation? And when you've translated it yourself?There is a little subtle thing in Stormgebieder. In the original the continent and the people are called the "Vis." It's a dark, passionate people. But "Vis" in Dutch means "fish", and there is not much passion in a fish. So I decided to add, after much thought, one letter: the 'h', so it's now Vish, like in Vishnu or something. So the "fishy" side isn't so strong in there. I felt I had to change that word around.
I take the original any time if I can. But I do read my own translations.HV: Do you read them often? Just for enjoyment?
Sometimes. No, there is not much enjoyment involved, because I always spot the mistakes. But if I have to do a follow up translation, I might take an earlier book in my own translation and read it. Or I might do that when I'm working on something by any author. If earlier books have been translated by someone else, and this is a book of a different cycle or a different subject, I still might take up the translated other books. Just to orient myself.HV: Not so much for enjoyment, but more professionally.
Not much for enjoyment, I don't think I would do that. Though there are some traditional translations, the older Meulenhoffs, the Demon Princes things like that. I enjoyed that in Dutch and I do tend to take those from the shelves.HV: Is there something special about the way Jack Vance writes, that you wouldn't have noticed if you wouldn't have translated him?
You don't really get down into the style of somebody unless you're translating him. Unless you're a student of literature, perhaps. Translating concentrates the mind something wonderful. What you do is, you view the style word for word and sentence for sentence and you try to put it together again in Dutch, so you have to analyze it first in English.HV: You notice it less when you're reading it.There are things about Jack Vance writing that really stick in your mind once you've done him. It's his dialogue. His dialogue is very, very brief. He never portrays people humming and hawing and saying "Well, I don't know," or "Eh, well, yeah, I suppose so." He always has very unconditional phrases. People say things bluntly. Without lubricating with little interjections. Sometimes it sounds as if there is no emotion behind it.
I noticed it several times. Especially in Cadwal.
Oh yes, that's right. It's just when you are translating it. I'm pretty good at translating dialogue, because dialogue is the point where languages diverge very much. You can have descriptions of woods and meadows and we have woods and meadows and we can get the translation to go along with the original.HV: Why is Jack Vance to my knowledge the most popular SF writer in the Netherlands?But if you have dialogue, people say different things in different countries. If you think about cursing and swearing, not just the words that you use as expletives or invectives but the syntax of it. "Not bloody likely" they say in English. You cannot say a thing like that in Dutch. It just isn't there. You don't put "bloody" or "damned" in the sentence in the way that English people do. So you have to rearrange the whole sentence and put in curses or expletives at other points. Or maybe even leave them out and put them in the next sentence.
Dialogue and especially emotional dialogue is very difficult to translate. If you read a translation where the dialogue reads stupid, it's because the translator translated it literally. And with dialogue you shouldn't.
The way we shape sentences when we talk is quite different from when we write. And you have to realize the difference and allow for it. Especially in dialogue. Nobody must notice it's been translated.
I think it's because of his humor. He doesn't make jokes. Hardly ever. And he's pretty serious in most things. But he has an ironic way of looking at life, which I think goes very well with the Dutch way of looking at life. We are not a heroic people, I mean, we've done heroic things in the past, but we don't like heroics. If somebody comes swaggering in we don't like it.HV: That's also probably the reason why he is not as popular in other countries.Take sports heroes. They win a terrible good race or a soccer match or whatever, and they ask: "Well, how do you feel?", and they say: "Yeah, well, we all did it together. You know, we tried to do our best, we didn't make a mistake." We always try to tone it down, that it wasn't all that heroic, we were just doing our best. We don't like to boast. Boasting is very bad in Holland, and that's an element that Jack Vance has. People do heroic things, but they cannot boast about them. Boastful people are being ridiculed in Vance's books. People who are heroes do things quietly and then they sit down and say: "It's over" and go on with their lives and they don't get prizes. Sometimes they get their rewards, but no glorious entry into the city, things like that.
Take the way he uses Cugel the Clever. Cugel is a scoundrel. And everything he does sort of turns to dust, except in the end in Cugel's Saga. But whenever Cugel boasts, he falls down a hole. It is remarkable. And Jack Vance does this all along the line. There are people who are heroic, but they don't want to boast about it. Even Kirth Gersen in the Demon Princes, he's really a sensible businessman. He has this revenge that he wants to wreak, but he is going about it very coolly. And he doesn't see it as something heroic. He doesn't dash in waving a sword to hack people to pieces. And I think Dutch people like this. They do like a bit of heroism, but they don't want people to boast about it. And Jack Vance's heroes do heroic things and don't boast.
I think so. There are other countries where people are not ashamed of being boastful, of being heroic. I doubt heroics, really, so that's why I also like Jack Vance.HV: Which book of Jack Vance do you think is your best translation?
I don't really know. I might say the Cadwal books, because there where a lot of problems in there. Very difficult. But I liked it a lot. I think the first Cadwal book was the best. Though I did like the Lyonesse books as well. Not the last one, but still. I can't really say. I'm never very happy with my translations, I always want to do them one better. There are always little things you find out afterwards. You think "I should have put that in."HV: Can you change such things in a next printing?
No, very, very difficult. If it's large enough I might, but the next print run is usually only feasible if they take the same copy. Changes cost money, and the publisher isn't really very happy if I say I'll have to change things.HV: It isn't automated enough so that you can just change it with a word processor, and off it goes?
No, not like that, there is a bit more to it. The publisher won't be happy if I change things, but I don't think there are mistakes that big, or that important, that I could ask the publisher to do it. If I were to come across them, I might.HV: Do you translate from original manuscripts?
That depends on what I get. With Jack Vance it is usually the original manuscript, or typescript really. Because Meulenhoff wants to be forward with everything and wants to bring them out practically as soon as they are out in other countries. Especially in English. So yes, I do work from original typescripts, and sometimes halfway through I get some pages sent by the agent to change things that Jack Vance thought of later when he was talking to his publisher.HV: Is this a problem?
No, it's hardly ever a problem if I'm still working on it, then I can rearrange it. It would be a problem if it came after the book was translated, but I'm never that fast.HV: Besides your own translations of Jack Vance, which translation do you think is best?But I seem to remember having done some Jack Vance translations from books as well. But since Meulenhoff is trying to keep up with his output, I'm getting typescripts. I've got one here now.
I'm not sure. It's a long time ago since I read the Demon Princes thing. And Tschai as well. But I thought they were good at the time. I don't think he was ever translated badly, at Meulenhoff at least. I think there is probably a lot to be said against the Scala translations, because of the publishers they were. But when they were done by Meulenhoff, they were done well.HV: I noticed that Vandals of the Void, a very tiny book translated in 1957 was reissued in a new translation.
Yes, when Meulenhoff takes up an older story, they often have it retranslated, unless they really like the translation.HV: You have written some books yourself. Did you ever try to emulate the style of an author that you have translated yourself?But I wouldn't be able to say which translation was best, except for the fact that the Meulenhoff translations are in general quite good. Meulenhoff is just a good publisher. And I think that that is a guarantee, not necessarily for the best translation, but for a careful translation. If a translator has problems, the editor checks it and returns it to the translator to make the changes. That's the advantage of Meulenhoff, and one cannot always say that of other publishers. Some publishers made a mess of their SF line.
I didn't write any books, but I've written a few stories. One of them appeared, to my joy, in a big collection of SF stories, and my story is in between Sturgeon and Asimov. That's not bad.HV: Have you done a lot of reviews?But I don't write often, I'm mostly doing book reviews and translations. I don't have a lot of time, I have to do this job for a living.
It does happen that somebody's style sticks in my mind if it is a good style, and if it's a bad style (on occasion I did translate things that weren't very good), then I read a few good books, for example Brian Aldiss or a piece of Shakespeare to return to a good style, and to loosen my mind.
But when writing I've never imitated the style of someone else. But it can affect my speech. I translated a book by Ben Elton, an English comedian, which contains a lot of cursing and loose language, and I noticed that I started doing that in my daily life. Just because I was so immersed in that use of language. But that erodes with time. It doesn't affect my writing, though. Writing is a different procedure.
I review books for the Nederlandse Bibliotheek en Lektuurcentrale. This is a review service for Dutch libraries. The review shouldn't take up more than 1000 characters, including a description of the cover, whether big or small type was used, the position of the author within the field and something about the style and language. All within 1000 characters. You should try that once. I must have done hundreds of these reviews. I've also done reviews for Spectrum in the past, and Holland SF of course. I've made so many reviews in my life, short and long.HV: Do you just get a list of titles to review?It's fun doing it.
No. The NBLC just send me the books I have to review, and if I don't want to do it then I'll have to mail them back. I also make reports for publishers. I get a manuscript or a book and then they want to know what the position is of that book within the SF field, if it is publishable and if I can tell something about the writer. Sometimes they only want a bookreport so that they can reject it. They think it is not good, but they fear they might have overlooked something so they let me make a report or ask my opinion. And then they make the decision based on that.HV: Are the books you get from the NBLC in Dutch?
No, it is almost always English. I have stated that I want SF and Fantasy. So I get a lot in English because I'm good at that. I also told them to remember that I have translated a lot of books, so it wouldn't do to mail me those translations. So for safety they mail me only English books.HV: When can we expect the Nightlamp translation?
I have to finish the translation by the end of December. When it reaches the shops I cannot say.HV: This is all I can shake loose about Nightlamp?
Yes! I never talk about my projects and employers until I've finished the project. And sometimes not even afterwards.HV: Annemarie, thank you very much for your time.
by Till Noever
In some instances the issues are addressed explicitly. The Gray Prince, for example, is a novel which involves a world-wide political problem of our day: that of the 'land rights' of indigenous people. It may have been transported to a world far away and thirty thousand years into the future, but it's still the same issue. The characters are representations of politicians and activists of our times. Their actions and motives are only too familiar. That it is thirty thousand years into the future makes no difference. The human condition and human nature, if one is to believe Jack Vance, does not change much over such insignificant periods. The formative forces acting on human beings and societies remain basically the same.
One might summarise Jack's analysis of the human condition in this manner:
1) Human beings are shaped by their culture (where culture = language + tradition + values + ethics + religion +...). Their values, attitudes, priorities, ethics, and morals are determined by that culture. Only very rarely is it possible that humans transcend the limitations imposed on them by their culture.
The case for this is made in innumerable novels and stories. The Gray Prince, the Tschai tetralogy, the Durdane trilogy, the Cadwal Chronicles, Marune: Alastor 933, Wyst: Alastor 1716, the Demon Princes novels - to name but a few.
2) A culture is shaped by the conditions in which a group of human beings finds itself. Those conditions are created by an interaction between the physical environment and the capabilities and expectations of the human beings placed into it. Cultural differences may make it utterly impossible for human beings to communicate sensibly on particular issues.
One place in which this point is made quite explicit is in the Tschai tetralogy, where we find ourselves a planet in which the hero, Adam Reith (one of Vance's 'adventurer'-types), encounters a whole host of human cultures, all of which derive from one group of humans, abducted from Earth by aliens thousands of years ago, and placed on this planet among other aliens - who in turn are a mixture of indigens and the leftovers of several waves of conquerors. All of the humans have been subtly or grossly shaped by the conditions which they have encountered, the aliens they had to interact with, the survival problems they had to face, the physical environment in which they were placed. Despite their common origin those groups are now fundamentally strangers to each other - having changed not only in their minds, but also in their physical appearances. Indeed, as Adam Reith notes, occasionally the humans he encounters are more alien to him than some of the aliens.
In another place Vance makes the same point almost in passing - but with his usual mordant wit - when Kirth Gersen (The Book of Dreams) on his travels comes across a planet where the original colonists were strict vegetarians, which have devolved, in a surprisingly small number of generations, into grazing animals, with a commensurate devolution of their mental faculties. ("Such is the dark side of vegetarianism," muses Gersen's contact on that world, who keeps one of those 'animals' as a servant.)
Or take the 'Yips' from the Cadwal Chronicles. Vance notes that they are considered by some to be a new 'super-human' species. However, to the reader (as much as to the folks of Araminta Station) they appear grotesquely primitive, barbarian, and incomprehensible. Certainly, communication about certain issues with them is quite impossible. They speak the same language, but they might as well not. Their value system is a grotesque parody of ours. Their ingenious self-centeredness is so childlike as to make them almost endearing; their complete lack of respect for human life makes them frightening.
The case of the Yips on Cadwal also touches on the issue addressed in The Gray Prince: namely who owns what piece of land and by what right. Is there any 'right' at all? Does past possession - with intervening dispossession through any form of conquest - account for anything? How should the dominating treat the dominated culture? How should - or can - two, mutually alien, cultures interact? Should they attempt to merge? Keep separate? What constitutes oppression of one culture by another? What about 'freedom fighters'? Are they heroes or villains, soldiers or criminals? Is it just a question of perspective? Is there a 'right' and a 'wrong' position? Who is the arbiter of right and wrong? Who defines what is right and what is wrong in any given case?
Those are vexing issues which are with us today. Indigenous peoples all over the world lay claim to territories that were taken from their ancestors by the colonial powers many years, sometimes centuries, ago. Treaties, they claim (usually with ample justification), were not honoured by the conquerors; who exploited the indigens for all they were worth and left them in misery, poverty, and a state of underdevelopment, murdered their people, and destroyed their cultures, their languages, their cities, their future.
All of this is true, but that does not make the issue any more clear cut. Claims based on tradition and past occupation - or ownership - of land suffer from the counter-argument that today's occupants of said land can hardly be held to account for the deeds of their great-great-grandfathers, and indeed must be considered just as 'indigenous' as those who would want to 'reclaim' the territory in question. Guilt is not inherited unless the inheritor chooses to behave in the same manner as his unsavoury ancestor.
Jack Vance has taken a clear position on these matters. Statements of this position are implicit in much of his writing, but have crystallised and become quite explicit in novels like The Gray Prince (which, from my own observations, is a woefully underrated work) and the Cadwal Chronicles alike.
Paraphrasing this position is not easy, but I'll try anyway - though I'm not too sure that I will be able to capture the finer nuances of what Jack is trying to say to us:
Consider a planet with a number of human cultures (tribes, nations, whatever) on it. Take any point in history. There has been past interaction between those groups, often bellicose. Certain groups, occupying certain territories, are oppressed and disadvantaged with respect to others, occupying the same territory. One culture is more dominant than the other.
This is as it is, and it cannot be changed. History has happened. We are at this point and the clock cannot be turned back.
The fact is that every bit of territory currently occupied by any group has been taken, usually by force, from another, previous, occupier. And that that one has probably taken it from its previous occupier - and so on. There is, at the heart of the matter, no 'right', unless it is supported by some form of 'might'. A 'right' only exists within the ethical framework of the currently dominant culture. If that happens to include the notion that the oppressed and disadvantaged should be treated better than they are, and that they should be compensated in some form for the losses their ancestors have suffered, and the grievances they have endured - well, so much the better. In that case the 'might' of the dominant culture ensures the 'right' of the 'oppressed'. That this should be possible in a given culture is an indication of its maturity. That the oppressed sub-culture should use this ethical soft spot of the dominant culture to its best advantage; that it should treat the culturally dependent 'rights' as if they were something 'natural', transcending the cultural context; that this issue should be a rallying point for demagogues and self-serving do-gooders - all of that is to be expected in the normal course of human affairs. And if the demagogues fail in one place, or at one cause, they are sure to do their best and find another that will satisfy their requirements.
The smooth interaction between cultures is usually hampered by the presence of cultural idiosyncrasies which make intercultural communication with regards to certain matters impossible. In such an instance, tolerance of each other's idiosyncrasies is in order. We may profoundly disagree with certain ethical aspects of other cultures, but we must not judge; not unless those aspects induce the other culture to directly threaten our own - because, of course, we have a right to defend ourselves against such threats. The rituals of the other culture may look quaint or even ridiculous to us, but we must respect them nonetheless. 'Respect' does not imply acceptance; not even understanding; but an acknowledgment that their rituals have just as much right to exist as ours. That maybe from their point of view those rituals which are perfectly sensible to us may constitute potential objects of ridicule, derision, or possibly moral repugnance.
As to Jack's stance on conservation we need look only to the Cadwal Chronicles. A small group of people - who admittedly live a life of some charm - administers a planet the size of Earth; ensuring that it remains as much as possible in its original state. This is depicted as a worthy goal which - though some of the antagonists decry it as naively idealistic - is upheld, and eventually wins the day.
The enemies to that enterprise appear in the guise of fossilised attitudes among some of the conservators; greed and self-interest by political opportunists and hypocrites who, under the guise of high ethical principles and goals, attempt to destroy the conservancy for their own aggrandisement; and the threat posed by the Yips, who are described as 'interlopers', a small group of which arrives one day and proceeds to proliferate with amazing effectiveness, thus posing a threat to the environmental integrity of the planet.
Jack's 'live and allow others to live' approach shines through here as well. There is a close link between his view of conservation and of cultural tolerance. The world is cruel; its inhabitants are dangerous. The notion of 'fairness' is a human artifact. Yet - despite its cruelty, its indifference, and its unforgivingness - it is worth preserving. The danger is the price we pay for that precious diversity without which this would be a dull place to be in.
Jack's whole work is a celebration of this diversity, and the colour and spice it brings into our lives. To remove that diversity would mean to impoverish our existence. The survivors in Jack's world are those who acknowledge the diversity and the danger, learn to adapt to and live with it, and maintain their personal integrity. This adaptation may involve learning how to make decisions whose ethical foundations may not be as clear-cut as we would like them to be, and whose outcomes may turn out to be ambiguous.
But then again, none of the real important decisions are ever easy. And they can never be completely right, because there is always a point of view from which they are wrong.
Only a fool expects certainty.
WISH LISTS Till Noever Harington Point Road 2 R.D. Dunedin New Zealand Looking for a reading copy: Isle of Peril aka Bird Isle Take My Face The Man in the Cage The Fox Valley Murders The Pleasant Grove Murders The Deadly Isles The House on Lily Street The View From Chickweed's Window FOR SALE Gregg Parmentier 2018 Waterfront Dr #137 Iowa City, IA 52240 The City of the Chasch Mayflower, vg- The Killing Machine Coronet, g+ Space Opera Coronet, g- To Live Forever Sphere, g- Trullion: Alastor 2262 Grafton, g+ Trullion: Alastor 2262 Grafton, g WILL TRADE FOR NON-US EDITIONS Gregg Parmentier Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden U-M 449/500, vg-f The Book of the Sixth World Fantasy Convention U-M, g+ U-M, vg+ The Five Gold Bands U-M, vg+ in g dj Big Planet Ace 3rd, vg The Blue World Ballantine 1st, g The Blue World Del Rey 1st, f-g The Brains of Earth/The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph Ace (M-141), g+ Ace (M-141), g+ Chasch Bluejay, g-vg Cugel's Saga Baen, g The Dirdir Ace, vg The Dragon Masters/The Five Gold Bands Ace (16640), g+ The Dragon Masters Ace (16648), g- The Eyes of the Overworld Ace, g+ The Gray Prince Avon 1st, g+ The Last Castle Ace (H-21), vg The Last Castle Tor, vg Maske: Thaery Berkley 1st, g+ Servants of the Wankh Ace, g+ Showboat World Pyramid, p-f Space Opera Pyramid, vg Star King Berkley, g Wankh Bluejay, g-vg