Home Fires and calendar reform SPOILERS

Mr Thalassocrat · 27 Jan 2011, 02:50 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat08 at gmail.com (Mr Thalassocrat)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:20:38 +1030
Subject: (urth) Home Fires and calendar reform **SPOILERS**
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On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 3:25 AM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:

> In "Home Fires" there is never a mention of months or month names. There
> are days, weeks, hundred-days, and years. What sort of calendar reform is
> this? Asimov proposed a uniform calendar abolishing the old months, with 91
> days per period. Four of these gives 364 days, a reasonable fit with the
> solar year. But four hundred-days is 400, which seems unreasonable. Does
> this calendar just let the years fall where they may?  It seems impractical
> for things like birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries (none of these things
> are mentioned within the story).
>
> The solar year is slowly getting longer, but it takes centuries to add
> minutes. This story doesn't seem to be set that far in the future. One
> possibility is that uniformity for business purposes has trumped all other
> practical considerations. Possibly it was mandated by the power-mad
> politicians. Or it may be another separation of religion and state, like the
> contracts replacing marriage. Religious holidays would be observed based on
> seasons and solstices, not a particular day of the year.
>
>

Perhaps it's a separation-from-nature thing. Societies destroying themselves
by cutting themselves off from nature is a faitrly common trope for Wolfe.
Abandoning a calendar based on natural cycles fits with this, I suppose.
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