Posted by Katharine Edgar on August 14, 2003 at 10:13:19 from 81.96.140.67 user Katharine.
In Reply to: Re: Is Commander (or Captain) Walker on leave or isn't he? posted by Peter Ceresole on August 13, 2003 at 19:38:05:
'Of course, it's AR's world, and the time is his time and could be elastic as you like... '
This is an excellent point and the radio masts issue backs it up. When writing WDMTGTS on board the Nancy Blackett, AR was describing the environment he was then in, which included seeing the radio masts. He did not, presumably, feel the need to go off and check whether these masts had been around in 1932 or whenever because he was not writing a historical novel set at that particular date, but a story with a contemporary setting. For this reason I don't think the dates ever will make sense.
Most fiction is a mixture of things in sharp focus, which can be alligned with real life, and things in softer focus which can't. This isn't an argument against the enjoyable nitpicking that goes on on Tarboard, and nor is it the same as the protestation 'But it's fiction!' which arises from time to time. It's a point that comes out brilliantly in John Sutherland's series of books on puzzles and conundrums in fiction, which starts with, 'Is Heathcliff a murderer? Great Puzzles in 19th Century Fiction' (highly recommended; see Amazon link below.) Sutherland argues that asking real-world questions about characters in books - such as when particular events take place, what so and so does for a living, etc - is in fact a perfectly reasonable thing to do as long as you are prepared for there not always to be a simple answer. Looking at exactly which areas make sense and which don't can in itself give you clues to the author's intentions, the construction of the books, and so on.
Sorry to go on at such length - I wanted to argue for the chronology not working without being thought to dismiss such questions as being irrelevant ones to ask of a work of fiction (as some people do from time to time on Tarboard). Personally I'm all for Tarboard pedantry, but in this case I think the answer is that there isn't an answer.