The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire
Doris Lessing

From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the fifth and final instalment in the visionary novel cycle ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’.‘The Sentimental Agents …’ is set in the declining Volyen Empire as the empires of Sirius and Shammat compete to overwhelm it with rhetoric and false sentiment. The Canopean Empire deploys covert agents to help the Volyens resist. But one of these agents, Incent, succumbs to ‘Undulant Rhetoric’, and Agent Klorathy must go to Volyen to help him see through the empty words that have beguiled him.Once more employing alien races to identify human failings, Lessing uses social and political satire to show how we misuse speech (and speeches) and delude ourselves with self-aggrandizing notions about the primacy of emotion. Her renowned insight into human behaviour goes hand in hand here with a vein of humour that sees her writing in the tradition of Voltaire and Swift.

DORIS LESSING

CANOPUS IN ARGOS: ARCHIVES

Documents relating to

THE SENTIMENTAL AGENTS IN THE VOLYEN EMPIRE

CONTENTS

Cover (#ue1dfc807-2359-5530-b5b2-03a131744745)

Title Page (#ua8dd025c-a621-5fd5-9f3b-df9ca9dee9ad)

KLORATHY, FROM INDEPENDENT PLANET VOLYEN, TO JOHOR ON CANOPUS. (#ulink_6795992c-aab8-59de-9cf7-43b9ac59ac24)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, FROM MOON II OF VOLYEN, VOLYENDESTA. (#ulink_7e856d31-347e-5a4b-b22a-5644d360d0f6)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, FROM MOON I OF VOLYEN, VOLYENADNA. (#ulink_39aeb5e3-a61c-541f-adad-34e478e62619)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, FROM VOLYENDESTA. (#ulink_b805506f-e335-532f-808a-a1e7a55ff28f)

FROM KLORATHY, IN VATUN ON VOLYEN, TO JOHOR. (#ulink_04fbd1dc-2506-5fea-acec-5fbecbe554f2)

KLORATHY IN VATUN TO JOHOR. (#ulink_fa099018-cefb-5da7-b3c3-3f40fe1cca43)

KLORATHY ON VOLYEN, TO JOHOR. (#ulink_73ba54cb-ac12-5382-9ede-236317f6e8b5)

KLORATHY ON VOLYENADNA, TO JOHOR. (#ulink_47c47af7-3628-5621-b39e-15c76be08c81)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR. FROM VOLYEN. (#litres_trial_promo)

REPORT FROM AM 5. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY, ON SLOVIN, TO JOHOR. (#litres_trial_promo)

AM 5 ON MOTZ, TO KLORATHY. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY ON VOLYEN TO JOHOR. (#litres_trial_promo)

EXTRACTS FROM A REPORT FROM AM 5. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR FROM VOLYEN. (#litres_trial_promo)

AM 5 TO KLORATHY. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, FROM VATUN. (#litres_trial_promo)

GRICE VS. VOLYEN (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR. FROM VOLYEN DESTA. (#litres_trial_promo)

ORMARIN TO KLORATHY. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, ENCLOSING THE ABOVE. (#litres_trial_promo)

KLORATHY TO JOHOR, FROM HIS SPACE TRAVELLER, EN ROUTE TO SHAMMAT. (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author

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Copyright

About the Publisher

The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire is the fifth in a series of novels with the overall title ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’; the first is Shikasta (1979); the second The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980); the third The Sirian Experiments (1981); and the fourth The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982).

KLORATHY, FROM INDEPENDENT PLANET VOLYEN, TO JOHOR ON CANOPUS. (#ulink_3e5e6b4a-3691-599b-810d-01c56d466ec1)

I requested leave from service on Shikasta; I find myself on a planet whose dominant feature is the same as Shikasta’s. Very well! I will stick it out for this term of duty. But I hereby give notice, formally, that I am applying to be sent, when I’m finished here, to a planet as backward as you like, as challenging as you like, but not one whose populations seem permanently afflicted by self-destructive dementia.

Now for my initial report. I have been here five V-years, and can confirm recent reports that our agent Incent did succumb to an attack of Rhetoric – not, after all, unknown, and not, as I may remind you, always unwelcome if regarded as an inoculation against worse – but unfortunately he did not recover, and suffers still from a stubborn condition of Undulant Rhetoric.

It was ten V-years ago that he fell to the wiles of Shammat, reporting his reactions in a letter which I attach herewith. Please see that it reaches the Archives.

Klorathy, I am taking the liberty of writing to you direct, instead of to the Colonial Office, because of our meeting when I came home to Canopus on leave last year and you said you had been assigned my supervision. I feel that what I want to ask is so important it goes beyond my little personal problems, but on the other hand I have no actual administrative problems as such to report.

To come to the point, I met someone on this planet’s second planet, Volyendesta, when I was there because of the riots, which necessitated the withdrawal of Volyen’s Imperial Forces. I do not have to tell you that all through my training as Colonial Servant, and during my briefing session, the dangers of Shammat were drummed into me – and everyone else! But imagine my surprise after the most inspiring evening of my whole life when I found that my companion was from Shammat! When he said he was Krolgul of Shammat I thought he was joking. I was awake all night in torment, Klorathy; I can’t remember ever spending such an awful night. Then I met him again by chance in the courts as the rebels were being sentenced, and I saw a man of such compassion, such warmth of heart, such sensitivity to others’ sufferings. This was the terrible Shammat! This wonderful being who wept as the rebels were led out to execution! I spent the next weeks with him. I was given a view of, first, Volyen, and then of the Volyen ‘Empire.’ I put it in inverted commas as is our Canopean way – but does this not show arrogance on our part? The Volyen Empire, consisting of the two moons, Volyenadna and Volyendesta, and two neighbouring planets, Maken and Slovin in Volyen terminology (the Sirian planets PE 70 and PE 71), hardly stands comparison with our Rule, or that of the Sirian Empire, but from their point of view it is something, an achievement. I was quite ashamed to see Krolgul’s ironic but kind smile when I spoke of the Volyen Empire with what I am afraid I now see as something not far from contempt.

And it was not only of Volyen affairs but of Sirius and ourselves as well that I was introduced to a very different view.

So different there was a point when I realized, and with what shock and distress I hardly dare to say, that my attitude was no longer consistent with that of a loyal servant of Canopus.