Sunday 1 October 2017

Piet Hein

Copied from here.

Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001) is divided into Parts One and Two, each with an internal title page.

Part One, p. 1, has this appropriate quotation:

"To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
"Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

No surprises there. We recognize both the name Tennyson and the relevance of the verse.

Part Two, p. 99, has:

"Was it her I ought to have loved...?"
-Piet Hein.

Observations
I googled Piet Hein. See here.
When I googled the quotation, I found only copies of Anderson's text.
Hein refers to Niel Bohr who is also referenced in Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions. See here.
In Anderson's use of the quotation, does "her" refer to Earth?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I can see why the quote from Lord Tennyson was applicable to GENESIS. It most fits Christian Brannock, whose greatest in both life and after his download was to seek knowledge.

Dang, I must have seen the quote from the works of Piet Hein the times I read GENESIS, but never thought of looking him up till you blogged about him. Again, I can see why PA, whose mother was Danish, and knew Danish, would be familiar with Herr Hein.

I wondered if the "her" in the quote from Hein referred to both Earth and Laurindra.

Sean