Ninieslando (2)

Mi antaŭe raportis pri "Ninieslando", novelo de Howard Waldrop en la antologio Warriors (militistoj) sub redakcio de George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois. Estas interese, ke Esperanto lastatempe aperas en historia fikcio, ĉi-kaze fantazia. Mi ne scias, ĉu la "eraroj" ĉi tie estas intencaj tordoj aŭ sciomanko flanke de la aŭtoro. Jen lia erara enkonduko al la historio de Esperanto:

It was one of the ironies of these times that in that far‑off golden summer of 1914, when "some damn fool thing in the Balkans" was leading to its inevitable climax, Tommy's brother Fred, who was then eighteen, had been chosen as a delegate of the Birmingham Working‑Men's Esperanto Association to go as a representative to the Twenty‑fourth Annual Esperanto Conference in Basel, Switzerland. The Esperanto Conference had been to take place in the last days of July and the first days of August. (Fred had been to France before with a gang of school chums and was no stranger to travel.)

The Esperanto Conference was to celebrate the twenty‑fourth anniversary of Zamenhof's artificial language, invented to bring better understanding between peoples through the use of an easy‑to‑learn, totally regular invented language—the thinking being that if all people spoke the same language (recognizing a pre‑Babel dream), they would see that they were all one people, with common dreams and goals, and would slowly lose nationalism and religious partisanship through the use of the common tongue.

There had been other artificial languages since—Volapuk had had quite a few adherents around the turn of the century—but none had had the cachet of Esperanto, the first and best of them.

Mi ne malkaŝos la finon de la rakonto. Kompreneble, "Ninieslando" estas, en reala Esperanto, "Nenieslando" = angla "No Man's Land", t.e. areo en batalkampo kiun regas neniu lando. Ĉi-kaze, temas pri sekreta taĉmento—kaŝa societo—kiu organizas eskapon el la Milito (la Unua Mondmilito). Oni enkondukas Tommy tiu"land"en, kie li povas denove paroli Esperanton kaj preskaŭ forgesas la anglan, ĝis . . .

Ninieslando

“Warriors” edited by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (Reviewed by Robert Thompson), Fantasy Book Critic, March 1, 2010.

“Ninieslando” by Howard Waldrop. “Ninieslando” is one of those stories that starts off in one direction before suddenly veering off onto another. In this case, “Ninieslando” begins as what appears to be more historical fiction, particularly a realistic glimpse at trench warfare during World War I. But then the protagonist discovers a secret society based on the principles of the real life artificial language Esperanto and their plan to start a “New World of brotherhood”, and things start to get weird, but in a good way...