Corwin has set one foot then another upon the lightning traceries of the Pattern and his memories are returning to him. To start:
I saw the paper skins and the knobby, stick-like bones of the dead of Auschwitz. I had been present at Nuremberg, I knew. I heard the voice of Stephen Spender reciting “Vienna,” and I saw Mother Courage cross the stage on the night of a Brecht premiere. I saw the rockets leap up from the stained hard places, Peenemunde, Vandenberg, Kennedy, Kyzyl Kum in Kazakhstan, and I touched with my hands the Wall of China. We were drinking beer and wine, and Shaxpur said he was drunk and went off to puke. I entered the green forests of the Western Reserve and took three scalps one day. I hummed a tune as we marched along and it caught on. It become “Auprès de ma blonde.” I remembered, I remembered … my life within the Shadow place its inhabitants had called the Earth. Three more steps, and I held a bloody blade and saw three dead men and my horse, on which I had fled the revolution in France. And more, so much more, back to—
- Auschwitz was a large complex of concentration, labor, and extermination camps that the Nazis built in Poland. While it originally housed Polish prisoners of war and political detainees, Jews, Romani, queer people, and Soviet prisoners of war were soon brought there as well. This is where Josef Mengele tortured people to death under the guise of medical research. Corwin mentions General MacArthur, indicating he was fighting for the Allies.
- Nuremberg was a center of Nazi power and influence. Nazi Party conventions/rallies were held there, the Reichstag convened there to pass the Nuremberg Laws which revoked German citizenship for specifically Jews and generally everyone not Aryan. It was the headquarters of Military District XIII, where tank engines, aircraft, and submarines were built. Later, the Nuremberg Trials were held there – Corwin mentions this jokingly in the first few pages of the book. Maybe he was there as witness, maybe he was there to give testimony.
- Stephen Spender was an English essayist, poet, and novelist. “Vienna” is a lengthy poem praising the 1934 uprising of Austrian Socialists.
- Bertolt Brecht was German poet, playwright, and later screenwriter. “Mother Courage and her Children” is one of his plays. It premiered in Germany in 1941, meaning that Corwin was in Germany in 1941.
- The Germans worked on V1 and V2 rockets with, among others, Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde. It’s possible that Corwin was there as a spy for the Allies.
- Vandenberg is the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the USA, started in 1941, meant to be a space-launch base.
- Kennedy is the Kennedy Space Center, formed in 1962 – just a few years before the book was published.
- “Kyzyl Kum in Kazakhstan” is known for its deposits of various precious things including gold, copper, and… uranium. It was once held by the Soviet Union.
- The Wall of China is… The Wall of China.
- “Shaxpur” is William Shakespeare. Corwin has an affinity for poets and playwrights.
- Corwin was in The Western Reserve murdering and mutilating Native Americans. He “took three scalps in one day.” Is it possible he was on the side of the Iroquois and killing white settlers? I don’t know, I guess? But probably not?
- Corwin apparently wrote the song Auprès de ma blonde, a French song written in the 1670s.
- Roughly 100 years later he was apparently on the wrong side of The French Revolution.
Corwin then goes on to remember how he arrived on Earth.
After Eric beat Corwin up he dropped him off in a Plague-stricken London to die of the plague instead of, like, directly murdering him, which doesn’t really make sense in a rational way but these guys are just… over the top, in every way. They can’t just kill a guy, they have to torture them and let nature take its course to kill them slowly.
Even dying of bubonic plague Corwin manages to splinter peoples’ bones.
He realizes, as he keeps walking, that he was stuck on Earth without a memory since the 1500s… and Flora was there keeping track of him the entire time.
(In a later book, Flora states that it was HER Shadow, she loved it, and that’s part of why nobody questioned why she spent so much time there. Which begs the question of why Eric dropped Corwin there and if it was by design or not.)
We had spent much of our time in wandering in Shadow, or in our own universes. It is an academic, though valid philosophical question, as to whether one with power over Shadow could create his own universe. Whatever the ultimate answer, from a practical point we could.
One question is whether they walk toward worlds of their own creation, or whether they find worlds in their travels that contain what they want. This is never really resolved!
Random bad made it through the Pattern. Even Deirdre had made it. Therefore, I, Corwin, would make it, no matter what the resistance.
Ah, come ON. EVEN Deidre? So gross. He goes on to condescend toward her a bit more as he makes his plans. And what does he plan? Why, he plans to go home, of course!
So he can murder his brother.
Obviously.
He slips into a D&D campaign, lurking in secret passageways so he can break into a library and steal an arcane item. Because this is a non-stop sword and sorcery novel of COURSE someone comes in and Corwin ducks behind cover.
Then he realizes it would be embarrassing to be discovered so he pops back up.
References:
“Black Davy” very possibly refers to one of the Child Ballads, namely “The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy,” “The Black Eyed Gypsy,” and “Black Jack Davy.”
