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From: ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Could there be a Gnarly Man in current times?
Date: 10 May 2024 00:33:45 GMT
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In article <v1jnls$ubib$7@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 5/8/24 10:21 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> On 5/7/2024 3:39 PM, Tony Nance wrote:
>>> So I’m making my way through The Best of L Sprague de Camp, and I just 
>>> (re)read “The Gnarly Man”. It made me wonder ... well, first a quick 
>>> summary for context:
>>>
>>> This story was written in 1939 and is set in 1956. It’s about an 
>>> immortal Neanderthal - basically he stopped aging around the age of 
>>> 33. He most definitely looks the part, and he’s intelligent, 
>>> articulate, knowledgable, knows dozens of languages, etc etc etc, A 
>>> fundamental part of his long-term survival has been to avoid attention 
>>> - nothing high profile or noteworthy, move on to a new place every 
>>> 10-15 years (sooner if necessary), etc.[1]
>>>
>>> That said, throughout his 52,000 years, he has pretty consistently 
>>> been part of society, not some sort of loner hiding out in the wilds. 
>>> Here, we initially find him performing as an ape-man in a carnival 
>>> show. During the story he mentions he has also been a blacksmith, a 
>>> maker of false teeth (he says he invented them [2]), a wagon driver 
>>> (transporting goods), a professional wrestler, an archer in a Briton 
>>> army (vs the Romans), a cabbie, and he ran a sawmill. (I may have 
>>> missed some.)
>>>
>>> And this made me wonder:
>>> Given his obvious physical differences, and with modern technology and 
>>> communication being what it is, are there ways he could he stay a 
>>> member of modern society and also avoid attention?
>>>
>>> Tony, having some initial thoughts, but curious about yours
>>>
>>> [1] Poul Anderson revisits this mode of survival for immortals in The 
>>> Boat of A Million Years. Of course, in Poul’s book, the immortals are 
>>> modern-type humans who don’t look any different.
>>>
>>> [2] He also invented soup, by necessity, since his teeth wore out and 
>>> he hadn’t invented false teeth yet.
>> 
>> PJ Plauger also explored this in 'Child of all Ages'.
>> 
>> There, the protagonist also has the problem of appearing to be an 10
>> year old girl. Thus she both lacked much agency, and couldn't go too
>> long before her lack of aging was noticed.
>> 
>> An adult immortal could become quite rich through the effects of
>> compound interest. However, staying under the government's radar
>> becomes increasingly difficult.
>> 
>
>Agreed - both parts. As it turns out, de Camp did not mention banking or 
>compound interest in this story, so we don't know what he would have 
>thought about it.
>

Neither did Reiner & Brooks that I can recall :-)
-- 
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