Matthew Elmslie's Blog, page 7

Spring 71: Greenkind

Dearest Zann,

I took Ellewen up on his offer to visit him at the Public Bureau. “Ybel!” he said. I thought he seemed genuinely glad to see me. He nodded at his fellow clerks, Ebe and Rodaro. They waved him off, indicating they could handle things. I guessed Ellewen’s participation at the Bureau was voluntary and irregular.

“I’ve brought you back your things,” I said, holding up the sphere and ring that had helped heal me.

“Yes, thank you, come on back,” he answered, leading me to a door around the corner. I followed him. Inside was a small shady room with a large window looking out on a grassy little cranny in the side of the Comet Halls. Chairs and table, some books, some plants, a divan. A border-bridge set. “You’re looking well. You move stiffly, though. Do your wounds still trouble you?”

“Only a little,” I said. “Thanks to you. No, the stiffness is because one of my underlings feels the need to punish me with stick-fighting drills every day.”

“Of course. Please, sit.”

I sat, and put the sphere and ring on the table. “It was lucky for me that you came along when you did. Tell me, please, if you don’t mind, what is your role here at the palace?”

“Ah. No, I don’t mind. Well, perhaps I have no official role. I am something of an embarrassment to my people. You see, I first came to Crideon long before the rest of my kin did. I’ve always been curious about it, you see. The city, and your people, and your ways. Fascinating. It’s not an attitude most of us have. They’d like to pretend I’m not here, but my knowledge is just too useful. Generally my talents are best employed down here at the Bureau, where I can, oh, translate between the needs of the people and the ideas of the Valnelatar court.”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of you ever came here. You… what should I call your people? You know we call you ‘laurans’.”

“Yes, it’s very funny,” he said, pouring some of that cloying honey drink for us. “Well, our proper name is–” and here he said a word with a lot of Ls and Rs and things in it, and a couple of birdcalls and the scent of peonies “–but you should just say ‘greenkind’. That will never offend.”

“Why ‘greenkind’?”

He sipped. “We pretend a great affinity for plants and trees and other growing things. And, having pretended it, we are very proud of it.”

“Oh. Well, then, greenkind. Thank you. So, you like it here?”

“There is much about the Crideon lands to admire. It’s like our home in many ways. But it isn’t really home.”

“Then…” I could feel him looking at me. And I decided not to ask the next question. He probably wouldn’t answer it. And what if he did? Maybe some other time. Instead, I said, “Some time ago, I met another… greenkind. Down at the docks.”

“Oh, yes?”

“He was having some supplies loaded on his foamcraft. But he seemed sick. And sad. His foamcraft was in bad shape, too; stained with algae and filth. I wouldn’t mind speaking to him again; do you know who he could be?”

“How strange. No, I’ve no idea. Would you like me to see if I can find out?”

“Yes, please, if you can. Is there any service I can do for you, in return for all your kindness?”

“You can tell me what you think,” he said.

“About what?”

“About anything. Whatever’s happening in the palace, in the city, in your life. I think our peoples must begin to know each other. But my kin are stubbornly uninterested in that. Well, perhaps I can remedy it, a little.”

It sounded a lot like spying. But, I thought, I could just not tell him anything sensitive, assuming I knew it in the first place. “Happy to,” I said.

Then we played border-bridge. I lost both games, which is normal, but I thought I put up a better fight than I usually do.

Love,

Zann

Spring 70: ow

Beloved Zann,

My guard shift today at the palace wasn’t until late afternoon. Yes, corporals still have to put in regular guard shifts; we’re on the wheel. So are the lieutenants. Not the captain, though. Anyway, I thought I could sleep late.

So I was surprised when Srix woke me up by kicking me in the leg.

“Ow,” I said.

“Get up,” he said. “We have a lot to do today.”

“No, we don’t.”

He kicked me again. “You want to go back to sleep? Then stop me from kicking you.” And he kicked me again.

I sat up. “Why are you here?” Wande and Jhus were still here. I could hear them out in the other room. They must have let him in.

“Get up and I’ll tell you.”

“I’m a corporal. You’re nothing, you’re just a guard. Stop kicking me.”

He kicked me again. Same spot on my leg every time. It was really starting to hurt. “You’re wasting the morning.”

I got up.

When we came out of the sleeping room Wande was helping Jhus put on her shoes. “Day,” Wande said, as though nothing unusual was happening.

“You’ve met Srix here, I guess?”

“Ay,” she said. “It was a pleasure.”

“I like Srix,” Jhus said. “He has my favour.” I suppose that was inevitable.

“You’re not worthy of these two,” Srix said to me.

“Why are you here?” I asked him again.

“Day, Ybel,” Wande said as she and Jhus left. “Jhus, say day to Ybel.”

“I sha’n’t,” Jhus said, as the door closed behind her.

“Explain,” I said, pouring myself some water. I didn’t offer Srix any. My mother would have been scandalized by that, and so would Wande, but I have my limits.

“I’ve talked to Captain Candur. And Damsel Ambe. They told me what happened to you. You want me to be your guard. Not just a Rosolla guard, but a guard for you.”

“So?”

“I don’t know if I want to spend that much time around you. I don’t know if I want to put all that effort in to preserving your pathetic life.”

“Then don’t. Go home and let me get back to sleep.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “No, I’ll do it. But we’re going to do it my way.”

“I’m still the corporal here!”

He kicked me in the leg again. Same spot! Even though that leg was now on the other side of me. “Oh, you’re a corporal. Impressive. So you ought to be able to make me stop kicking you, yes?” And kicked me again. I tried to dodge and block, but he was too good at it.

“A little better,” he said. “I know you have some kind of religious objection to fighting.”

“It’s not religious.”

“But you’re a guard, and you’re going to be involved with fighting will you or nill you. I’d be a fool if I agreed to guard a man who couldn’t fight but insisted on going into battle anyway. So I’m going to teach you how to protect yourself in a fight. Without cutting or stabbing anyone, yes, I know. It won’t be as good as though you were a real warrior, but at least you won’t be working against me.”

“I can already do that,” I told him. “I came through the entire Sugarside siege without striking a blow.”

“And took a serious leg wound. And, no doubt, put your comrades at greater risk. And enjoyed much good fortune, I’m sure. Well, I’m not some upcountry bumpkin who will share your danger unwitting. You’ve been just barely good enough. You need to be better. I can make you better. It will take a long time, but I can.”

One of the reasons I recruited Srix was that he had a mind of his own. The rest of the day was very unpleasant.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 69: Woodchuck

Most loved Zann,

The broadsheet I usually read is the Woodchuck. It has that writer I like, Emeraldo, and sometimes they have good comic drawings. Here’s what was in today’s.

a story by Emeraldo about a roosttower with a new lauran landlord who is ignoring complaintsan obviously made-up story by that pissard Mardle, trying to drum up hate against Amaydyanslyrics to a new tavern song, “Blood in the River”descriptions of new fashions for women, using gauzy lauran fabricsa comic drawing of a cat sharpening her claws on one of the new black spiresa description of yesterday’s longball games out at Sarpan Fielda description of the execution, at Blackfloors, of a man and a woman for “great crimes” that weren’t specifiedthe latest chapter of a romance. It’s about a human man and lauran woman who have to travel to Omhelos together. I haven’t been following it closely. Every time I look at it there’s a storm that forces them to stay in some roadside hostelry where there’s only one bed availableand of course the usual nonsensus in the personal column. “7 TBC m.” “Alleycat? Come to RR 12. Look for the red shoe.” “Clock flourish slow which.” Must mean something to someone

Not to get into parts of my past that I don’t want to talk about, but I do hear a lot about these broadsheets being used for political purposes, to build up support for this faction or that one, or to send secret messages. And it’s obviously true. I don’t care about any of it and I’m not going to join a faction, but it is nice to be able to read these things and remember what I used to care about. It’s one of the only things about younger Ybel that I can stand to think about.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 68: Corporal Delega

Dearest Zann,

Delega caught me after the meeting with the castellan. She hadn’t said a word to me the whole time, and I thought I noticed her looking at me angrily once or twice.

“How do you dare call yourself a curst corporal?” she said, grabbing my arm hard and shoving me at the corridor wall. “You shouldn’t be a guard at all!”

“The captain wants me to be a corporal,” I told her, as calmly as I could. “I’m going to do my best.”

“Your best is a bubble of piss! You can’t even fight! I heard what happened.”

I pulled my arm free. “Look, why do you care? You got promoted too.”

“Ay,” she said, “I worked for a long time to become corporal. I made myself good with my sword. And I finally made it. And you get the same thing after a few swings of… what, exactly?”

“Can I give you a piece of advice?”

“No. You can quit. You don’t belong in the Rosolla Guard. You’re weak and you’re going to endanger the rest of us and you’re going to endanger the palace. And you’re going to get hurt or killed yourself, don’t you even care about that?”

“I’m going to tell you anyway. The reason you haven’t been promoted before this is that you think the only important part of being a guard is swordsmanship. It’s not. Weren’t you listening in there with Senrralar? This whole palace is politics. And if you don’t start to learn about that, then you’re the one who’s going to endanger people.”

She stepped back from me. “You can tell yourself that,” she said. “Or, even better, you can tell Trall and Carsaduam, next time you meet them. See how well it works.” And swaggered off.

I hadn’t forgotten about Trall and Carsaduam. Also, Ambe’s scarf won’t work anymore; the charm must have worn off by now. I’d have to think.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 67: embassies

Dearest Zann,

One of the first things Candur did once I became a corporal was to introduce me to the castellan. He’s called that even though this isn’t really a castle. He’s the guy who handles all the details of maintaining the buildings, including dealing with the guards. Which is us. Well, us and the Immaculate Zone, whoever or whatever that is.

The castellan is an elderly lauran man with a twinkling eye, named Senrralar. When Candur introduced me, he said, “This person is honoured to know you, Corporal Ybel.”

It caught me off guard and I blurted out, “Which person?” and he grinned, which I had never seen a lauran do before or since.

“The one who is speaking to you, young warrior,” he answered, getting a detail wrong. “This person hopes your service here is long.”

So I got him to like me, by accident, I guess. Seems like a decent old fellow. Candur and Delega (another new corporal) and I spend about an hour with him going over palace details; there’s a lot of coordinating with non-routine events we have to do that I never knew about before. I guess Sergeant Vasro can’t be expected to do it.

One thing I learned was about all the embassies in the palace. There are many kingdoms and things that border Crideon, and they all have their people here, and so do some of the other places who deal with Crideon a lot. They actually live here, in what’s called the Green Hotel, down sort of near the water. I never had any reason to go down there; we don’t guard the ambassadors. They have their own people for that. But there’s a little courtyard off to the side where you can see the banners of all the different countries and things who have embassies here. It took me a while to figure out what they all were. But I got it. There’s

the Kingdom of Amaydya (to our south)
the League of the River (allied city-states upstream of us on the Crideon River)
Jephiel (also to our south)
Rin Sharuane (cluster of ancient forbidden ruins to our east. Of course it has an ambassador)
the Raness (almost completely uninhabited wilderness, to our east)
New Omhelos (powerful city, nowhere near Crideon. Way to the north? West? Northwest?)
the Duchy of Marannum (to our southwest)
the Masters of Despair Swamp (to our west)
Gallan Island (independent island in the Crideon River, downstream from the city)
the Ias Empire (huge empire far to the south)
the Principality of Kiyet (to our west)
Peiland (to our north)

You’ve probably noticed that Brebitze isn’t on this list. I don’t know why they don’t have an embassy here. We’re not at war with them. We’ve got a huge border on our west with them. The city is full of Brebitzians on every kind of business. Doesn’t make sense to me.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 66: Yskere

Dearest Zann,

So a few days later I was back in Candur’s office while Srix and five other guards took their Rosolla Guard oaths. Or, rather, I brought them there, and then made an excuse to get away as quickly as I could.

I didn’t write about taking the oath myself, back when I first joined. That’s because I didn’t take it.

The problem is that the oath asks you to swear by the mysteries of Yskere. And I don’t know the mysteries of Yskere, because I don’t belong to the cult of Yskere. Yskere is the patron goddess of soldiers. All soldiers, if they’re serious about it and not just a farmhand carrying a spear because someone told him to, are supposed to join the cult. So I got recruited when I was in the army. All very secretive. Fellow named Smanick took me aside one evening and explained the basic idea.

First you get piss drunk. Then Smanick takes a paste of ground-up herbs and rubs it on your eyelids. Then you put your head in a box and Smanick and a couple of other soldiers bury you alive, not too deep, and they blow some kind of smoke into the box. And Yskere comes to you and shows you her mysteries, which are, I think, secrets about life and death and blood and sex. And you’re there overnight. In the morning Smanick digs you up and you’re in the cult.

So I did all that, but the problem was that when Yskere came to me, she was angry. “Never!” she shouted. “You will never learn! You’re no soldier; you would betray your comrades in an instant! I don’t know what you are and I turn my face from you!” And disappeared from my mind’s eye. It scared the drink and smoke right out of me and I lay there shivering until the morning.

Nobody ever asked me about it. Smanick was supposed to, but the Sugarsiders made a sortie that morning and he was killed. Everyone assumed that I was in the cult, but I wasn’t, and I’m sure not going to swear an oath that I am. From what I understand, it’s normal for warrior orders like the Rosolla Guard to require that their members all be sworn to Yskere. I just have to hope that it’s never important. And that Candur never finds out.

I wish I could say that I didn’t understand why Yskere was angry at me. But I do. Oh well; as long as I’m in the palace, that’s the important part.

Oh, I should mention that the other guards who joined this morning included three that Fafafa had sent me to. There was Akinis the Rider, Red Mallot, and Trrle Two-Flags. All three were very friendly and easygoing, had done a lot of this kind of work before, and seemed like they could kill me with a rosepetal at sixty paces.

Love,

Ybel

Review: The Fourth Turning Is Here (Neil Howe)

This is a review of Neil Howe’s new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here. This part, above the line, I’m writing in early July, before the book is out and before I’ve read any part of it.

Neil Howe has been writing about generations for a long time. He and his late coauthor, William Strauss, wrote a series of books about their concept of generational cycles starting with Generations in 1991. Their second book, 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?, in 1993, is a study of what we now call Generation X, and it’s the one I read first. I thought it was really interesting and hunted up their other stuff, and when their third book The Fourth Turning came out, I (along with a lot of other people) spent a lot of time on the message boards of the book’s website. This eventually led to a series of get-togethers in Washington and Nashville where we met Strauss and Howe, and also to some of our bons mots being quoted in their fourth book, Millennials Rising.

A quick description of Strauss-Howe generational cycles. First, a stage of life is about 20 years long. You’ve got youth (0-20), adulthood (21-40), midlife (41-60), and elderhood (61-80). Roughly speaking. This is all roughly speaking. Second, a generation is about 20 years long. A Strauss-Howe generation is a group of people in the same society who were born within about a 20-year period, who therefore shared similar coming-of-age experiences, and who therefore largely share a similar generational personality.

Third, a generation will give to society what it perceives to have been missing from society during its youth. (History produces generations; generations produce history.) Fourth, there’s a four-stroke cycle of generational types that repeats, always in the same order, and this generational cycle is visible in history, art, literature, and legend.

Fifth, this cycle produces 20-year eras (or “turnings”) that can be characterized by which generational type is in which age bracket at the time. Like, at one time you’ll have type 1 in youth, type 2 in adulthood, type 3 in midlife, and type 4 in elderhood. Then forty years later the type 1s will have aged to midlife, the type 2s will have aged to elderhood, and we’ll have new type 3s in youth and type 4s in adulthood. And their respective personalities will be one of the things that make these eras feel different from each other.

Sixth, this gives us a repeating 80-year cycle of historical eras. Again: all very roughly speaking.

This isn’t science, and yet it also isn’t historicism. Howe and Strauss think they’ve found a pattern, and they’ve identified a mechanism that they think produces it and will continue to produce it. They haven’t been afraid of making predictions, and a lot of their predictions look pretty good after a couple of decades. But a lot of what they’re talking about is inescapably subjective, and as such I don’t think it’s really falsifiable.

Many will say that this is a crackpot theory and that generations aren’t really a real thing anyway. I get that. I don’t agree, but I do think there are things to be said on that side. Anyway, I won’t argue; you don’t need to agree with me. There are other objections that can be made, of varying levels of validity. That’s all fine.

My perspective is, I think Howe and Strauss are on to something. The generational cycle makes sense to me, and since the mid-’90s, when I first learned about it, it hasn’t stopped making sense to me. It has vastly increased my understanding of history, by giving a shape to it. It’s fun to talk about. If you want to look into it, you can.

Some specifics. The “fourth turning” that Strauss and Howe refer to is one of their types of historical era, also called a “Crisis”, in which visionary Prophet generations (like Boomers) are in elderhood, pragmatic Nomad generations (like GenXers) are in midlife, capable Hero generations (like Millennials) are in adulthood, and sheltered Artist generations (like Zoomers) are in their youth. In this kind of era, society goes through a drastic and dangerous fundamental change that makes everything after it different from everything before it. Like the American Revolution, or the Civil War, or the Depression+World War II. Their book The Fourth Turning (1997) was a warning to everyone that such an era was coming and we would do well to get ready for it. The meaning of the title of the new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here, is obvious in this context.

I’m wondering, first, what the writing is going to be like in the new book, now that William Strauss is no longer with us. Both Howe and Strauss wrote books separately on other subjects, so it’s not like Howe can’t do it on his own, or anything. But my experience of them was always that Strauss was the showman of the two (he’s the same William Strauss who cofounded the Capitol Steps troupe), while Howe was quieter. It could make a difference.

But mostly I’m wondering what Howe is going to tell us about what’s going on. See, I think, and I’m not the only one, that the Crisis era began with 9/11 in 2001. I think that’s when Everything Changed. It’s true that that would mean that the Crisis came early; it gives us a pretty short third turning (or Unraveling era), from 1984 to 2001. That’s not necessarily a problem, though; something similar may have happened around the Civil War, depending on who you talk to. But my understanding is that Neil Howe considers the financial crisis of 2007-08 as the inciting event of the Crisis. He probably has a good reason for this.

But it has implications about where we are now. If the Crisis started in 2001, then here in 2023, after more than 20 years, we ought to be about ready to come out of it, if in fact we haven’t already. And I think it’s plausible that we have! But if it started in 2007, then we’re almost certainly still in it, and we’ll have to brace ourselves for a few years more of this nonsense.

Understand what I’m saying, because I’m not interested in sounding any more cracked than I actually am: I’m not saying, “we have this pattern, it says we’re in a Crisis era, therefore we’re going to do this and this and this”. It’s not deterministic like that. The generational cycle pattern is trying to be descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s more like, “we have this pattern, it suggests that people have an appetite for doing this and this and this, and that we won’t get tired of it for another few years, and until we do we’ll still be able to describe the era as a Crisis”.

I don’t want to speculate (one prediction I’m very confident about: there will be advice on how to prepare ourselves for the next turning!) too much about what’s in the book, but that’s what’s going to be at the top of my mind when I read it. A few more things I want to touch on while we have time:

Strauss and Howe have many prominent readers from the upper echelons of U.S. government circles. In the ’90s the cover blurbs made much of the fact that both Newt Gingrich and Al Gore liked Generations, for instance. Bipartisan, you see. More troublingly, the Project for the New American Century, Paul Wolfowitz’s group, were way big into the generational cycle, presumably trying to find a way to bend the arc of history in favour of their own nefarious ends. And of course ol’ Steve Bannon is also a fan, probably for the same reason. I swear you don’t have to be evil to like this stuff! If I could kick Bannon out of the club I would.Strauss and Howe write from a U.S. perspective, and here I am up in Canada. I’m not the researchers they are, but what reading I have done has always suggested to me that Canada is on the same cycle as the U.S.A., give or take a couple of years here or there. If I’m right that the Crisis ended in the U.S. on January 6th, 2021, when Trump’s coup failed, then I would say that the Crisis ended in Canada on February 21st, 2022, when the convoy was finally cleared out of Ottawa, for instance.Strauss and Howe may use different generational boundaries than you’re used to. It’s the least interesting thing to argue about, but I’ll list theirs just so we can proceed on a basis of shared understanding. Note the boundary between the Boom and GenX in particular. Today’s living generations:

The G.I. Generation (often called the Greatest Generation) (Hero): 1901-1924 (2023 age 99-122)
The Silent Generation (Artist): 1925-1942 (2023 age 81-98)
The Boom Generation (Prophet): 1943-1960 (2023 age 63-80)
Generation X (formerly called the 13th Generation) (Nomad): 1961-1981 (2023 age 42-62)
The Millennial Generation (Hero): 1982-2005? (2023 age 18?-41) (or, my speculation: 1982-1997? (2023 age 26?-41))
The Homeland Generation (often called Zoomers) (Artist): 2006?-?? (2023 age 0-17) (or, my speculation: 1998?-2018?? (2023 age 5??-25?))
a new Prophet-type generation (Prophet): 2019??-?? (2023 age n/a) (or, my speculation: 2019??-?? (2023 age 0-4??))

One thing about this generational stuff is that the best way to do it, by far, is in retrospect. There’s obviously no way to look at a newborn baby and say, “this baby is clearly going to end up with a different generational take on life than that two-year-old over there”. A lot about how we view the Millennials and Zoomers will depend on how we come out of the Crisis era into the first turning (or High era). We’re using the generational pattern to pretend we know more about what’s going on than we really do. Again, these generations and eras are purely descriptive: people will do whatever they do for whatever reasons they do them, and the generational terms are for making sense of it afterwards.I suppose I should point out, if it wasn’t clear already, that I hold both Howe and Strauss in high regard, that their ideas have been very influential on me, and that both men were very kind to me the times we met. (At the same time, I like to think that I’ve still got enough healthy skepticism to disagree with them, or split with them entirely, if and when I think it’s warranted.) So this review is certainly not going to be a big slam.

Now for the part I wrote after reading the book.

Okay, I read it. I went through it pretty fast, but just flipping through it again while writing this, I think I might need to take another pass at it. I can do the review, though!

First things first: I wasn’t sure how different this book would be from the four previous books Howe and Strauss wrote about the generational cycle. I’m pleased to report that the narrative voice is the same, and the presentation of the material is as good or better than those other books. Should I have taken this for granted? Anyway, I didn’t.

Part of this is because Howe continues to reuse descriptions and citations that he and Strauss have used many times before. In how many different places have I read their metaphor about GenXers walking on a deserted beach that’s been ruined by Boomers? It’s here again (although significantly altered!). This is fine, for two reasons. First, every comic book is someone’s first. (That’s an expression. I’m not saying this book is a comic book.) Most of this book’s readers will be encountering the generational cycle for the first time. You have to write for them and not for the small clique of eccentrics who’ve been with you for decades. Second, how many different ways does one need to describe the same things over and over again? It’s a big book; no need to reinvent the wheel.

But, longtime Howe-and-Strauss readers, be warned: there is a great deal of material in this book that you’ve seen before.

Some of it’s better than it used to be, though! I was always dissatisfied with how Strauss and Howe dealt with music in their books. There would be a passage of, “This generation listened to this kind of music, and that generation listened to that kind of music, and…” and my reaction would be, yes? I’m sure they did; what of it? But in The Fourth Turning Is Here, Howe expands on this with some intriguing ideas about generational types and music. I don’t know if the subject is fully developed yet, but Howe has at least taken a definite step forward with it. That’s one example. Overall I would say that, yes, this book is worthwhile for generationheads.

In the first half of this article I described my disagreement with Howe about the timing of the Crisis era. Now that I’ve read The Fourth Turning Is Here, I understand Howe’s position much better. First, he manages to fit 9/11 into his ideas about a third turning (Unraveling era). Second, if I can interpret him here, you can’t have a Crisis without a lot of drastic action and chaos and death, which we have not yet had. Sure, the last fifteen years have been plenty eventful, but they haven’t been, from a U.S. perspective, World War II eventful. And, according to Howe, that’s the kind of scale that Crises operate on before they’re done. In this light, my argument about how the Crisis may be already over is like I’m trying to fulfill the technical requirements of a Crisis without actually having one.

I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s possible that Howe is insisting that this Crisis will resemble previous Crises more closely than he can know for sure. I’d say the same about his characterization of the Millennial generation, which doesn’t remind me of any Millennials I know. I’d say the same about his continued prediction that a Gray Champion figure will emerge to lead society through the worst of what’s to come. To quote Dennis Miller (another Boomer), when talking about Bill Clinton in a context remarkably similar to this one, “Maybe!… but I’m not getting that vibe.” The good news, and the bad news, is, we’re all going to find out. (Except, some of us might not.)

(I do have a dog in this fight. I have two sons, of an age such that if I’m right about the timing of the Crisis, they’re Homelanders, or Zoomers, who spent the Crisis at home not catching Covid. If Howe is right, they’re Millennials who have not yet seen the end of the Crisis. Since the role of Hero generations like Millennials is to be footsoldiers in the Crisis, that’s a prospect that scares me more than a little, so I’d rather I was right.)

A couple of things I wasn’t enthusiastic about. First, Howe deals with the current political climate with that kind of both-sides-ism that never fails to put me off. I don’t think it’s responsible. I do, grudgingly, understand it, though. First, Howe is trying to sell this book to conservatives as well as liberals (and has a day job in which I imagine he has to deal with a lot of conservatives). Second, he’s not dealing with “who is right” as much as he’s dealing with the question of “what are people going to do”, and that is a separation that can be made. I still don’t like it, but I’ll let it go.

Second, I think Howe underestimates the role that climate change will play in the Crisis. He mentions it, but focuses more on politics and economics as the things that the rest of the Crisis will be about. Maybe he’s right, but I think it’s a huge oversight.

At one point, Howe writes that the dominance of superhero movies is coming during a Crisis era, just as comic-book superheroes were in their Golden Age during the previous Crisis era. And that is an excellent point that, somehow, entirely escaped me up until the point that I read it. How did I miss that? I of all people should have clued into it. Maddening. Thank you, Neil Howe, for showing me how to tie my shoes. I’ll try to pay better attention.

When illustrating the personalities of the generations, Howe and Strauss have often used pop culture references to make their points. And I don’t think this has ever been their strongest suit. The characterizations often seem a little off. One example that struck me in this book is Howe’s reference to “works for me!” as a GenX catchphrase of the ’80s. Which… I mean, we said it, sure. It was around. But on the one hand I feel like their must be better examples of the kind of stuff we said, and on the other hand I mostly associate “works for me!” with the title character of the cop show Hunter, where Hunter was played by (Boomer) Fred Dryer. So: a little off, but nothing that really damages an argument.

But then there’s Howe’s repeated description of Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X as “sardonic”. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Coupland. He has a sense of humour that he isn’t afraid to use, and he likes his pop culture references… but he isn’t sardonic. He’s one of the most earnest writers I’ve experienced. Douglas Coupland has some things he wants to get off his chest. Generation X in particular is (loosely) about characters who are trying to leave ‘sardonic’ behind, and who eventually arrive at a point of genuine affirmation. It’s still a very GenX book! But it doesn’t help to get things like this wrong.

I had one criticism in mind for this book that I’m going to back down from. Originally I was going to say that a big problem with this book is that it’s not really telling us anything about what’s coming. That it’s no different from The Fourth Turning in that it gives us the same prediction about what the Crisis will be like, but doesn’t give us any details, even with a quarter-century more information about it. But when I was flipping back through the book, I decided that that wasn’t true. On one hand, the generational-cycle theory has been developed some more, and Howe gives details about the structure of a Crisis that do shed more light on what it is we’re up to at the moment. This is one reason I have to reread it; I have to pay more attention when he writes about things like “regeneracy phases”. On the other hand, Howe and Strauss made their names by predicting only as much of the future as they thought they could, and no more. Unrealistic of me to hope that Howe’s got some kind of crystal ball now.

I predicted above that Howe would give us advice in this book for how to prepare for the upcoming first turning (High era), and he doesn’t exactly. He discusses that future extensively, but he doesn’t give us a checklist to consult. Fair enough. I’ll call my prediction a wash.

Overall it’s a well-written book that made me think hard about a subject I already knew a lot about, and made me want to read it again. Bonus: it may give us a way to navigate a decade of danger. What more could I ask from a book?

Conclusion: if you’re interested in this generational-cycle idea, and you can only get one book, this is the book you want. I think you should be interested, but you must be the final judge of that. Whether Strauss and Howe are right or wrong in their theory, Howe has done an admirable job of presenting their case. I give The Fourth Turning Is Here a strong recommendation.

Spring 65: qualm

Dearest Zann,

The following night I was back at Kayar’s Tavern with Ostavon and Fafafa. I had just sat back down after singing the Grieving Mother Ballad for everyone (to polite appreciation from the crowd), when a thought came to me.

“Fafa,” I said.

“Ybel,” Fafafa answered.

“You know how I said I’m trying to find more people for the Rosolla Guard?”

He took a drink and shifted to face me directly. “I do know.”

“Is there anybody you know who’d be good? It is your line of work.”

He put his drink down. “It’s an interesting question. I know a lot of soldiers and warriors, yes. Some have their boots up at the moment. But…”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, and I said, “But?”

“…But, what happens if I tell you that Jacko Swingsword is just the man for you, and you make him a Rosolla Guard, and then Jacko swives the captain’s wife or steals the wine fund or something? Because with soldiers, you never know. And then you may be in trouble for bringing him in, and it may cause a problem in our friendship. And I value our friendship.”

“That’s well said,” Ostavon said, tugging at his beard.

“What if he doesn’t?” I said. “What if he’s great? You wouldn’t want to deprive me of someone who’s great, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“And I can’t imagine anyone you name being the kind of useless smackarse who’d get me in any kind of trouble.”

“Neither can I,” Fafafa said, taking a careful sip. “Well. I will certainly find someone if you want me to. I’ll send a message to your roost tomorrow with some names?”

“Please, yes,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

“I think that’s the right decision, Fafa,” Ostavon said. “I think you’re doing the right thing.”

“Oh, I do too,” he answered. “I just hope it works out well for our Ybel.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” I said.

“You’ve been a soldier, Ybel,” Ostavon said. “You know that things don’t need a reason to go wrong.”

And that was the truth. Fafafa left shortly after that and we weren’t far behind him.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 64: is it important

Dearest Zann,

The manor where Srix worked was more than an hour away by longcoach. It was one of the new ones on the upstream headlands, usually owned by rich merchants. Most of these fellows had kept their money and influence under the laurans. I knew the type well from loading and unloading their barges: petty, cruel people. I hoped they were giving Srix a terrible time.

The priest’s directions to the manor were clear and simple, and when I got to the place I had no doubt it was the right one. That was nice. Usually when someone tells you how to do something, you get halfway through it and then say, “Wait. Did they mean…” But this was good.

I’m the sort of person who often plans out what they’re going to say in a conversation. So normally I would have spent the longcoach journey imagining what Srix and I would say to each other. But I didn’t this time, because Srix never cooperates with anyone else’s ideas. I might as well try to catch a butterfly in my mouth.

The manor had a strong and tall wooden gate facing the road. I picked up a stone and used it to knock on the gate.

“Hey!” a voice said from above. “Don’t do that!”

I looked up. There was a guard at the top of the wall, probably on some kind of inner parapet.

“You’ll scratch the master’s paint, with your curst rock! Just shout up to me like a normal fellow!”

“My regrets,” I called up. “Is Srix around?”

There was a pause. “What do you want him for? Does he owe you money?”

“I just have business with him.”

Another pause. “Piss off.”

I spend too much time dealing with guards. “Can you just tell him Ybel’s here? Please?”

“Is it important?”

Is it important. No, chafferhead, I came all the way out here for something frivolous. “Life and death.”

“Wait there.”

I waited there. It was very sunny so I sat down under a tree across the road. It was about ten minutes later when part of the gate unfolded enough to let three people through; very cleverly done. There was the guard I had been talking to, Srix glowering at me like he does, and a richly dressed woman.

“Do you know who this man is?” the woman said to Srix.

“I’ve never seen him before… oh, well. Yes, certes I have. His name is Ybel and he is a man of no account at all. He’s probably here to beg.”

“Then thrash him and turn him off. He’s disrupted my household enough.” And she turned away and went back inside the gate. Srix advanced on me. Truncheon on his belt.

“Wait, you’re not going to do it, are you? Srix!”

“The mistress gave me an order,” he said, clearly enjoying himself. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“I’ve already been thrashed enough, look at me, for Mih’s sake. I want to talk to you.”

The other guard was back up at the top of the wall, grinning down at us. Srix reached out and tapped me on the point of the elbow with his truncheon, and then on the nose, both very lightly. “Look at you. I could break every bone in your body and you couldn’t do anything about it. Some guard.”

“Stop it. What’s the matter with you?”

“You’re worthless as a fighter. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is for me, one of the premier noblemen of Crideon, to owe you my life?” He tapped me again, one-two-three, in the groin, stomach, and heart.

“Wait, what? No, I–“

“That’s what you’re here for, right? To collect on my debt to you?”

“Srix! Stop poking me. You’re the one who saved my life, curse you, I’m here to offer you a job.”

He lowered his truncheon. “I clearly remember you putting yourself in the path of that red-bearded fellow. I was off-balance and he would have done me, no question, if you hadn’t hindered him.”

I didn’t remember the fight clearly at all. “If you say so. But you saved my life too.”

He waved that away with a jerk of his fingers. “The difference is, my life is worth saving, and yours is of no consequence. You owe me nothing.”

“This is why people don’t like you.”

“No. They don’t like me because I remind them that they have given their allegiance to the unworthy, and it makes them uncomfortable.”

“Well, we won’t argue. Any reason will do. I’m serious about offering you a job, though. I want you to work for me.”

Srix stared. “Doing what? Hoisting crates?”

“Oh, it’s better than that. I’m a corporal in the Rosolla Guard, and I’m going to be an officer. I need someone I can trust to be my assistant.”

He laughed harshly. And kept laughing. “How low the throne of Crideon has fallen, if they’re counting on you to safeguard their lives. You slithering worm. They’d never accept me as a guard. I’m their most hated enemy!”

“They will accept you as a guard. I guarantee it.” They would, too. I’d bet all the money in my pockets that the laurans have never heard of Srix’s curst family, and if someone told them, they wouldn’t care. Only I’d never find anyone to take the other end of the bet, except Srix, who doesn’t gamble. “And wouldn’t you like to get into the palace? Your people are out there on Birch Spit, cut off from all the palace gossip. Nobody tells you anything about what’s going on. Well, here’s your chance.”

I could tell he saw the possibilities. “And you think I’d work for you? You would trust me?”

“Why not?”

But he still wasn’t convinced. Then I told him how much it paid. Thing about the Vafeligs is, they don’t have much money left.

All my love,

Ybel

Spring 63: preserves

Most beloved Zann,

I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t dream; I just kept waking up. Which makes sense because of all the sleep I had had the day before. And when I woke I was sore and muzzy and in low spirits. But things did seem mostly normal other than that.

Wande and Jhus had already left by the time I woke. Wande had left some breakfast for me in the cold bin. Jaunelle preserves on the good bread. I ate that and bathed and dressed–and shaved!–and plotted out what to do today. I still wanted to track down Srix.

If Srix wasn’t working for Nangolt anymore, there was only one place I could go to look for him. And, like most sensible humans, I didn’t want to go there. It was the temple of Valx, out on Birch Spit. I trotted over to Enjar’s Street and caught a longcoach going that way.

So here’s the explanation of Srix and why he’s like that. He made me listen to it once and this is the part I couldn’t avoid paying attention to. A long time ago, the Crideon lands were ruled by the Vafelig family. Then the king died, whatever his name was. And he didn’t leave any heirs. So they had to have a grand council to decide who got to be king next. There were other Vafeligs around, but they weren’t closely related enough to the king to have a very good claim. Other families, because of intermarriages and whatnot, also had candidates with good claims. Eventually, and to hear Srix tell it there was a lot of sexy bribery and other kinds of corruption involved, the council settled on Ponesh, the first Talistag king.

But the Vafeligs weren’t happy, and didn’t just go away. They might have started a war to take the throne back, but they didn’t have enough support. So they started a religion. The remaining Vafeligs, and their few loyal supporters, became worshippers of Valx, the Lord of Rightful Rule. The god of being in charge by birthright, essentially. And since then they’ve been a fringe presence in Crideon society, trying to win as many people as possible over to the idea that the Vafeligs should be in charge because their piss has just the right smell to it, or something. Unsuccessfully, of course; nobody else has the slightest amount of time for them. Valx isn’t even a real god! You put his shrine in a fountainroom, it doesn’t glow no matter how many offerings you make to him.

(The Vafeligs have an explanation for this. It’s not worth the time it would take to repeat it.)

Srix, obviously, is a Vafelig, and he can’t shut up about his rights and how he and his family don’t get the proper respect. Especially now that the laurans rule and the Talistags are nowhere to be found.

This is why I wanted Srix: I know he’s not mixed up with any other criminal faction because he’s so committed to his own smackarse faction that nobody else would touch him. (Plus, he’s too proud.) I know he could watch my back against most regular danger because he’s a tall dark well-built fellow who’s quick with his sword. And I know he could shake me up if I needed it because he was always doing that. Not a fool, Srix, and a very uncomfortable man to talk to.

I climbed out of the longcoach about a block from Birch Spit, and walked out on Birch Road. The Spit was a sad little rocky point that stuck out a couple of hundred feet into the Crideon River. You couldn’t build much on it, but the Vafeligs had cleared some of the rocks and built a temple in green and yellow stone, the family colours.

There was a wide path through the rocks, but it was overgrown. I picked my way through, and ascended into the temple. Clean but dusty, and quite airy inside. Someone had put a bowl of flowers on the green altar. A man in yellow robes came out from a back room.

“Do you accept King Onyxal as your true sovereign?” he demanded.

Technically I could get in trouble for answering this, but nobody takes these people seriously, and you have to go along with it if you want anything from them. “Aye,” I said.

He was still suspicious, having been lied to about this thousands of times, but he was stuck with me as much as I was stuck with him. “Have you come to join us?” he asked. “Have you come to aid us in throwing off the cruel yoke of the Talistag’s lauran puppets?”

That was one I hadn’t heard before. “Not today, cousin,” I said. (One thing I learned from Srix: the Valxans call each other ‘cousin’. It’s significant to them somehow.) “I’m looking for Cousin Srix. I used to work with him.”

He glared at me.

“Cousin?” I said.

“We have a lot of people coming here, looking for information about our cousins. Sometimes it isn’t to their advantage. Creditors, things like that. Often they pretend sympathy to our views.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t do that,” I lied. “Anyway, I’m here to offer Srix a job. Very much to his advantage.”

“As may be. We must be careful, though. I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to find Srix unless I was satisfied you were one of the faithful.”

“All right,” I said. “How can I satisfy you?”

“You must feed our Sacred Aunt,” he said. “She will be able to taste your intentions in your offering.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“No. Come with me.” He led me out the back door of the temple, through the grass down to the river, where there was an overgrown brick circle with a large trap door in the centre. He kissed me on the forehead (and, unlike me, he hadn’t bathed or shaved recently) and said, “Go with Valx.”

“What’s down there? Are you feeding me to a monster?”

He laughed. “Of course not. What kind of a way is that to grow a congregation? We’d never get anywhere! You’ll be fine.”

Good answer, I supposed. I opened the trap door, revealing a crude staircase winding around downwards. It smelled like the river down there, but also like something else. I wanted to turn around and just get the piss out of there. I was going through this so I could spend more time with Srix? Ridiculous. But I had to admit I was curious just what the Valxians were up to out here.

I climbed down, gingerly, my ribs and legs complaining the whole way. At the bottom of the stairs was a stone room, lit by a sunglass that must have been wired to the temple. There was a pool in the middle of the room, full of water. That was all that was here.

The priest hadn’t given me any food, and I wasn’t carrying any with me. How was I supposed to feed… their aunt? Nobody was here.

I looked to see if I could walk around the edge of the pool, but there wasn’t enough of an edge to balance on all the way around. I tried touching the water in the pool.

It wasn’t water! It was some other curst thing, and it rose up out of the poolbed in huge globs and glorps at me. “Aaah!” I said, and fell back on my chuff.

The giant watery blob wrapped one flollop around me and held me. I screamed for help. It extended another smorp of glup towards my face and I just screamed.

Cold and slippery, it forced its way into my mouth, and down my throat. I choked, tasting river slime, and tried to vomit, but couldn’t. My head and arms were held tight. The coldness of the scummy floop of blup moved all the way down my throat and into my heaving stomach, where it absorbed all the food that was in there.

Once it was sated, just as quickly as it had invaded my mouth and neck, it withdrew. I could once again taste the jaunelle preserves it had eaten in my belly. The thing, the Sacred Aunt, settled back into its poolbed and released my shoulders.

I fell back, scrambling and gasping. Climbed the stairs on all fours. The trap door was shut above me, and I hammered on it. The Valxian priest opened it.

“I see you were telling the truth,” he said. “The Sacred Aunt always knows! I’ll see what I can find about Cousin Srix.”

“Fuh… puh…”

“And you’ve now been accepted into our little family! I hope to see you here much more often, as we try to reclaim these holy lands from those who would defile them for our own purposes.”

I crawled back to the temple behind him.

“Lucky you had been telling the truth,” he continued. “If you had had ill intentions toward Srix, you wouldn’t have come back up! Poor Srix, it’s not often that someone wishes him well.”

I sat on the temple’s back stairs, breathing hard, enjoying the sunshine between lavender clouds. (I’d have to get inside early this afternoon, or the mists would make my hair fall out.) I made plans to stop at a fountainroom soon, so I could wash the Sacred Aunt’s taste out of my mouth.

The priest told me how I could find the villa where Srix was working as a guard and footman. I thanked him and went on my way.

Love,

Ybel