The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr

[LynnS]

An accidental find -  I came across this short story by George published in 1976 in Fantastic Stories. 

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr - Fantasy Magazine (fantasy-magazine.com)

For those of us starved for something new (but in this case old). 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I have the audiobook version on my ipod and have listened to it over 30 times.  Do you remember that in The Stone City they use a form of faster-than-light travel called the Dan'lai jump gun that makes you go insane?  You put on a crown to travel.  Well, I think Holt went insane in that story, and the whole story took place inside his head and he was still in a coma from the jump gun scrambling his brain.  I think the same is true of Sharra--she wears a crown and jumps from world to world and nothing makes sense.  I think this story is actually set in the Thousand Worlds universe, and that Sharra has also had her brain fried by the jump gun crown.  Also, it is very close to the plot of George's The Runner, that Sharra is being forever chased by some mysterious cosmic entities called the Seven.

In gaelic laran means "dwarf, urchin, weakling" and daor means "enslaved, condemned person" --Laren Dorr is George condemned to a life of loneliness.

saoire (~sharra) means "freedom" and Sharra is a girl who cannot be tied down.

Laren Dorr is a mopey guy who wears a wolf-skin cloak (Ned) and he has a doomed romance with a girl named Sharra (Ashara) and it ends with him essentially pushing her out of a tower (into the gateway to another world)

The story features a flying castle, and a malevolent cosmic black hooded man that haunts the night sky (the Stranger)

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I have the audiobook version on my ipod and have listened to it over 30 times.  Do you remember that in The Stone City they use a form of faster-than-light travel called the Dan'lai jump gun that makes you go insane?  You put on a crown to travel.  Well, I think Holt went insane in that story, and the whole story took place inside his head and he was still in a coma from the jump gun scrambling his brain.  I think the same is true of Sharra--she wears a crown and jumps from world to world and nothing makes sense.  I think this story is actually set in the Thousand Worlds universe, and that Sharra has also had her brain fried by the jump gun crown.  Also, it is very close to the plot of George's The Runner, that Sharra is being forever chased by some mysterious cosmic entities called the Seven.

In gaelic laran means "dwarf, urchin, weakling" and daor means "enslaved, condemned person" --Laren Dorr is George condemned to a life of loneliness.

saoire (~sharra) means "freedom" and Sharra is a girl who cannot be tied down.

Laren Dorr is a mopey guy who wears a wolf-skin cloak (Ned) and he has a doomed romance with a girl named Sharra (Ashara) and it ends with him essentially pushing her out of a tower (into the gateway to another world)

The story features a flying castle, and a malevolent cosmic black hooded man that haunts the night sky (the Stranger)

It's always interesting to hear from you OB.  I haven't heard of The Stone City or The Runner,  But I'm not surprised that you know them.    This is a very early story with some themes that he as reworked and expanded on:  The Stranger; Danaerys always fleeing from something behind her.  These are typical dream images I think most people have experienced.  Unrequited love or loss of a loved one -  Sharra/Ashera and her lover Laren/Eddard.  I've wondered if it has personal undertones for George.

The introduction of the Seven as gatekeepers is interesting and I wonder if this will be reworked in ASOIAF in some way.  We already have Coldhands and now Sam as keepers of the Black Gate.  Bran has access to many doors and gates in the wiernet so Bloodraven tells him.   Shierra might also be reworked from Sharra.

The whole story has many dream element/recurring elements and dreams do have a surreal aspect.  The  crown or some device accessing the mind. 

One of the special features from the movie Inception:

Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious (RU subtitles) - YouTube

[Mourning Star]

4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

In gaelic laran means "dwarf, urchin, weakling" and daor means "enslaved, condemned person" --Laren Dorr is George condemned to a life of loneliness.

saoire (~sharra) means "freedom" and Sharra is a girl who cannot be tied down.

Obviously, I'm only speculating, but my take on the names:

Laren - I believe literally means of Laurentum, or of the place of laurels.

The Greek legend which comes to mind is that of Daphne, and Apollo's unrequited love. Daphne is pursued by Apollo and prays to her father the river god, who turns her into a laurel tree. Apollo being god of the Sun, and of singers (note not only the plot parallel, but the color symbolism with Laren Dorr and his singing, music lightshows).

Dorr - means idle or lazy, and obviously sounds like door.

But this we know: In an empty castle below a purple sun, a lonely minstrel waits, and sings of her.

The Laurel is also the symbol traditionally given to poets (and worn with purple robes by the emperors of Rome, and before that by those given a triumph, marking them as kingly and near divine... kind of like Laren Dorr, but I digress). A classic example of a poet's laurel would be Dante, almost always pictured featuring the laurel crown, as he was depicted by Botticelli.

The World of Laren Dorr, is described in the story as a wooded valley at sunset:

One moment there was only the valley, caught in twilight. The setting sun hung fat and violet on the ridge above, and its rays slanted down silently into a dense forest whose trees had shiny black trunks and colorless ghostly leaves. The only sounds were the cries of the mourning-birds coming out for the night, and the swift rush of water in the rocky stream that cut the woods.

And a dark wood at sunset, where the easy way was lost, is how both Dante's Divine Comedy and ASoIaF begin.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not point out the "mourning-birds", not to be confused with morning birds, because it's the same pun as in my user name!

From Wikipedia, on why they are called mourning doves (notice the white/grey parallel to Laren Dorr's clothing):

A Huron/ Wyandot legend tells of a maiden named Ayu'ra (probably more accurately spelled Iohara, a common Iroquois girl's name today) who used to care for the bird, who came to love her a great deal. One day, she became sick and died. As her spirit traveled across the land to the entrance to the Underworld, all the doves followed her and tried to gain entrance into the Underworld alongside her. Sky Woman, the deity who guards this door refused them entry, eventually creating smoke to blind them and take Ayu'ra's spirit away without their knowledge. The smoke stained their feathers gray and they have been in mourning for the maiden's loss ever since. The logic behind the story is a play on words—the sound many Native Americans attributed to the bird was "howe howe," and this is also the sound the Iroquoian peoples used to chant over the dead at funerary events.

Doves are symbols of peace and love, and were depicted besides Ishtar, Aphrodite, and Venus... the morning star. They are the goddesses of love, Dante ends his Divine Comedy with "The Love which moves the sun and other stars", and the World of Laren Dorr has no stars.

When she walks at night, a stranger in a lonely land, does the sky have stars?

 

Edit: My Head Cannon is that Laren Dorr is/was Kayden

Candlelight flickered in his eyes

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

9 hours ago, LynnS said:

Sharra/Ashera and her lover Laren/Eddard.  I've wondered if it has personal undertones for George.

Yes, George was traumatized when Lisa Tuttle broke up with him, and he just kept retelling the break up over and over--it is a major theme in This Tower of Ashes, Meathouse Man, Dying of the Light, The Stone City, Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr, A Song for Lya, etc. 

 

Since we are talking about names, check this out, in Dwelly's gaelic dictionary acharadhein (~Ashara Dayne) means "dwarf, diminutive person, sprite" (sprite ~ "ghost" and lemur means "ghost")

And in Dinneen's gaelic dictionary cadar means "hermaphrodite, an effeminate person"

So, Laren = dwarf, Sharra = dwarf, and Kaydar = hermaphrodite, gay.  (and George's self-insert is Tyrion the hermaphrodite dwarf)

 

Saagael ~ sgail / scail means "shadow, astral body, ghost" in gaelic, and was the villain from George's story Only Kids are Afraid of the Dark, and he tried to bring the Long Night. (so a cosmic demon that appears in the sky as a black hooded man, and is associated with bringing the Long Night)

Naa-Slas ~ na slas means "the slaughtering" in gaelic

Bakkalon ~ buacalla means "boy" and bacalla means "staff, shephard's hook, an ill-shaped nose" and bacach means "cripple, lame" and bacuighim means "I cripple, injure" and bacala means "hindrance",   (Bakkalon was the pale child who took up the demon reaver sword of leadership [sword=staff] and shepherded the Steel Angels.)

 

 

Shierra Seastar

In O'Reilly's gaelic dictionary eascu means "eel" and right below that is easeastarr which means "he prayed" 

I have thought that Shierra Seastar was a metaphor for a weirwood, and Bloodraven ended up wedding the weirwood tree.  Eels are a metaphor for weirwood roots (see A Night at the Tarn House), and you pray to them.  Also, sea star means starfish, which turn to stone when they die, like weirwoods do.