To me, science fiction is best when it exuberantly pretends freakishness to work back toward the essential nature of fiction. One of my sister’s early novels treated a planet where “winter” lasted many years. She has never lived in an extremely cold climate, and anyone who has might notice her unfamiliarity with the details of existence dominated by the sub-zero. Yet her descriptions are fictionally effective, for fiction only seems to remind us of actual existence. It invents possibilities of experience which, if we give ourselves to them, that is, respond imaginatively to them, enable us to return to actuality as more competent human (e.g., moral) organisms. So I would urge the fifteen graduate students who doubtless are busy writing dissertations on Le Guin not to seek in Bulgaria for the setting of “Brothers and Sisters.” The curious growthless plain of limestone quarries is not East of the Sun and West of the Moon, just a little south of Zembla and north of Graustark.
Similar coordinates are needed to locate the following description.
They went noiselessly over mats of starry moss, rustled through interspersed tracts of leaves, skirted trunks with spreading roots whose mossed rinds made them like hands wearing green gloves; elbowed old elms and ashes with great forks, in which stood pools of water that overflowed on rainy days and ran down their stems in green cascades. On older trees still than these huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled, the taper was interrupted; the lichen ate the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.
A pilgrim looking for this landscape in southern England is farther off the track than an enthusiast finding prototypes for Theodore Sturgeon. The Woodlanders wouldn’t be worth reading if it only reported what a dope with a camera could photograph. “Brothers and Sisters” isn’t, I think, essentially different from Le Guinian star treks, though its superficial “realism” may indicate my sister’s growing confidence that her readers can be trusted to use their imaginations, to appreciate that fictional reality is fantasy.
I hope so, for such confidence would imply a reviving sense for the utility of literature. Here I can call on the testimony of a fellow immigrant to Brooklyn (unimaginative people come from Brooklyn): “these things are important not because a/ high-sounding interpretation can be put on them but because they are/ useful.” Miss Moore, like Pooh, referred to poetry, but her words are equally applicable to the transformations of prose. As when, talking baseball, she said she was impressed at how the Dodgers’ catcher “could throw the ball all the way to second base with just one hand.”
In an unambiguous utopia, all novels would be written that way.
459.13 Stefan Fabbre] This Stefan is the grandson of the Stefan Fabbre in “Brothers and Sisters.” He will reappear twenty-seven years later in “Unlocking the Air” (page 543 in this volume), an example of the way the Orsinian tales are linked by theme, image, and ongoing cultural and historical forces more than by simple chronology.
463.9 They talked helices] The date this story is set, 1962, is the year Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the helical form of DNA molecules, a discovery first announced by Watson and Crick in the journal Nature in 1953. (Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray images of DNA played a key role in the discovery of its structure, was not eligible for the prize because of her death in 1958.)
466.21 the reprisals of 1956.] This is confirmation that the Hungarian-style uprising anticipated in “The Road East” has occurred and, predictably, has been forcibly repressed by the Soviets.
470.11–12 the bluish figures OA46992 were visible] Bret is evidently a former prisoner at Auschwitz and bears the distinctive tattooed identification number.
470.13–17 an English lute-song . . . envying.] Poem and musical setting by English poet Thomas Campion (1567–1620) from Fourth Book of Airs (c. 1617). Its opening lines are “Silly boy, ’tis ful Moone yet thy night as day shines clearely; / Had thy youth but wit to feare, thou couldst not love so dearely.”
470.20 “Plaisir d’Amour,”] Classical French love song (1784) by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816) with lyrics from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794). Like Campion’s, this is an ominous look at love: “The pleasure of love lasts only a moment / The grief of love lasts a lifetime.” Martini’s tune was adapted into the popular song “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” recorded by Elvis Presley in 1961.
471.4–5 swim, swim, little trout.] The piece Kasimir is practicing is the Trout Quintet, or the Piano Quintet in A Major (1819), by Franz Schubert (1797–1828). Introduced in this story, Schubert dominates the next, “An die Musik” (page 480). The Trout, named for its musical quotation of an earlier song by Schubert called “Die Forelle,” or “The Trout,” is unusual within the chamber repertoire in including a bass viol along with the more standard piano, violin, viola, and cello. Kasimir has deliberately chosen a rarely featured instrument (the Dvořák cello concerto raises that instrument to the virtuoso level more often enjoyed by violinists) and opted for a career playing ensembles rather than solos.
471.13 the Dvorak Concerto] Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (1894–95), the last solo concerto written by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) and his only completed concerto for cello.
471.17 Pablo Casals] Pau Casala i Defilló (1876–1973), known as Pablo Casals, preeminent cellist and conductor from Spain.
477.9–10 There were pine splinters in the quicks of his nails] The practice of driving wooden splinters under fingernails is a common form of torture, found in accounts of medieval interrogations, records of the Spanish Inquisition, and eyewitness stories from a number of twentieth-century conflicts.
480.1 An die Musik] Song “An die Musik” (“To Music”), set by Schubert in 1817 to a poem by his friend Franz von Schober (1796–1882).
480.19 the Appassionata] Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (1804–5), known as the Appassionata (Italian: passionate).
481.12 a Goethe lyric] Many poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) have been set as lieder or songs by composers ranging from Mozart (1756–1791) to Charles Ives (1874–1954). The story does not specify which lyric Gaye has set to music, although in the original version of this story published in Western Humanities Review in 1961, the poem was identified as “Ueber allen Gipfeln” (1780).
481.19 a Kyrie, Benedictus, and Sanctus.] A traditional musical mass consists of five parts: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The Kyrie is the opening sung prayer, and the Benedictus is part of the Sanctus, a short doxology.
481.23–24 “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini”] Latin: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; a line from the Roman Rite, the most widespread liturgical rite in the Catholic Church.
482.13 The Credo] A movement of the mass, named for its first word: Credo, “I believe.”
484.33–34 on Mahler, on Richard Strauss] German Romantic composers Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) and Richard Strauss (1864–1949).
485.11–12 kill the man . . . last quintet?] Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828) died two months after completing his String Quintet in C major, regarded as one of the greatest chamber music compositions.
485.14 Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir!] German: You, lovely art, I thank you! The final line of the title song thanks the art of music (or art in general), which, the poet says, has “transported me into a better world.”
485.33 “Du lieber Herr Gott!”] German: Dear God!
486.5–6 Doch, doch—] German: Yes, yes—
486.27 Hugo Wolf] Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (1860–1903), Austrian composer, primarily of lieder.
488.31 lieder-singer] Lieder, or art songs, often a musical setting of a poem or text for one voice with piano accompaniment.
488.32 Strauss’s Arabella] A com
ic opera with a libretto by Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), which premiered in Dresden in 1933.
489.16–17 Putzi playing the piano to soothe the Leader’s nerves.] Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (1887–1975), nicknamed Putzi (or Little Fellow), a businessman of German and American parentage, met Adolf Hitler in 1922. He became part of Hitler’s inner circle and was often called upon to play the piano. Hanfstaengl was appointed foreign press chief of the Nazi party in 1932, but gradually became estranged from Hitler. Fearing for his life, he went into exile in England in 1937. During World War II he wrote confidential reports on Hitler and the Nazi leadership for the U.S. government.
491.11 “Mr Neville Chamberlain in Munich,”] British prime minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940), French premier Édouard Daladier, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler met in Munich, September 29–30, 1938, and agreed that Czechoslovakia would cede its Sudetenland region to Germany. Chamberlain then returned to England and declared that the agreement would bring “peace in our time.” When Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, Chamberlain abandoned his appeasement policy and declared that Britain would defend Poland against aggression.
492.38–40 “It is Thou in thy mercy . . . complain.”] The poem Gaye is struggling to set to music is by Joseph von Eichendorff (1788–1857), and begins “Es wandelt, was wir schauen, / Tag sinkt ins Abendrot, / Die Lust hat eignes Grauen, / Und alles hat den Tod.” James Bittner translates the first verse thus: “Things change, whatever we look at, / Day sinks into sunset glow, / Desire has its own horror, / And everything dies.” The poem has been set to music, by both Alban Berg (1885–1935) and Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944).
493.31 Lehmann] Charlotte “Lotte” Lehman (1888–1976), one of the great sopranos of her time, left Germany in 1938 because her stepchildren were half Jewish.
493.32 Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir.] See note 485.14.
518.14–15 The Citroen and the Rolls] Imported cars: the French Citroën was a mass-production design, while the British Rolls-Royce was a luxury automobile.
518.36–37 the history of the Ten Provinces in the Early Middle Ages] In his historical research, Professor Egideskar might have unearthed the story of Count Freyga that is recounted in “The Barrow” (page 363 in this volume).
518.40 Asgard] The realm of the high gods, or Aesir, in Norse mythology.
520.1 Yggdrasil] The World Tree in Norse mythology: an enormous ash whose roots and branches connect the human home of Midgard, or Middle Earth, with Niflheim, the realm of the dead; Jotunheim, the realm of the Frost Giants; and Asgard, home of the gods.
520.3 Loki’s Grove] Like the Greek Prometheus (see note 17.32), the half-giant Loki turned against his divine companions and was punished by being chained to a rock. In the visionary poem “Völuspá,” the first poem of the Poetic Edda, his prison is under a grove of hot springs.
520.7 the death of Baldur] The Norse god of light, Baldur or Baldr is doomed by prophecy to die young. To forestall his death, his mother Frigg asks all things to promise not to harm Baldur, but fails to ask the mistletoe. Since nothing will harm him, he is essentially invulnerable, and it becomes a game among the gods to aim missiles at him. His blind brother Hodur is left out of the game, but the malicious Loki makes an arrow out of the mistletoe and helps Hodur aim the bow, killing his brother.
521.39 sterility is what I fear] If the Egideskar home is Asgard, the baroness should be Frigg, wife of Odin, but here she is clearly Freya, goddess of fertility. That is also the name her husband gives her (see page 524).
522.5 Ragnarok] Twilight of the Gods: the end time in Norse myth, when all will be destroyed and a new creation brought into being. In the final days, the gods will be brought down by their enemies, particularly Loki’s three children: Hel (goddess of the dead), Fenris (an enormously powerful wolf), and the Midgard Serpent (a snake so large that it circles the earth).
524.28 the Dorian mode] A musical scale, one of seven modes. In modern usage, the Dorian mode is essentially a minor scale with a flattened sixth, or the result of playing an octave on all white notes from D to the D above. An example of Dorian mode is the traditional tune “Scarborough Fair.”
524.38 Freya] See note 521.39.
535.16–17 Paraguananza, the capital] The capital of Paraguay is Asunción.
535.20 METEMPSYCHOSIS] Transmigration of a soul.
551.17–18 that small, discontinuous, silvery sound.] The sound, later (page 555) revealed to be the jingling of thousands of keys, was one of the forms of protest during the Velvet Revolution in Prague in 1989. New York Times reporter Joseph Tagliabue wrote on December 12, 1989, “Today, at exactly noon in Prague, people flooded into the streets around Wenceslas Square, the central shopping thoroughfare, rattling key chains and tinkling tiny bells. The jingling of keys, acts symbolizing the opening of hitherto locked doors, has become a common gesture in the wave of demonstrations.”
553.13 Koshchey the Deathless] A villainous sorcerer of Russian folklore who could not be killed because he had hidden his life or soul away from his body. Koschey, or Koschei, is the adversary in a number of Russian folktales and in Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird (1910).
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Ursula K. Le Guin Page 66