"Kim Stanley Robinson - Vinland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

So we got the Kensington stone, the halberds, the
mooring holes, the coins. But if a hoax predated
Antiquitates Americanae. . . it made me wonder."
"If the book itself were somehow involved?"
"Exactly," the professor said, regarding the minister
with pleasure. "I wondered if the book might not
incorporate, or have been inspired by, hoaxed material.
Then one day I was reading a description of the field
work here, and it occurred to me that this site was a bit
too pristine. As if it had been built but never lived in.
Best estimates for its occupation were as low as one
summer, because they couldn't find any trash middens to
speak of, or graves."
"It could have been occupied very briefly," the
minister pointed out.
"Yes, I know. That's what I thought at the time. But
then I heard from a colleague in Bergen that the
Gronlendinga Saga was apparently a forgery, at least in
the parts referring to the discovery of Vinland. Pages
had been inserted that dated back to the 1820s. And
after that, I had a doubt that wouldn't go away."
"But there are more Vinland stories than that one,
yes?"
"Yes. There are three main sources. The
Gronlendinga Saga, The Saga of Erik the Red, and the
part of The Hauksbäk that tells about Thorfinn
Karlsefni's expedition. But with one of those questioned,
I began to doubt them all. And the story itself.
Everything having to do with the idea of Vinland."
 "Is that when you went to Bergen?" a graduate
student asked.
The professor nodded. He drained his plastic cup,
felt the alcohol rushing through him. "I joined Nielsen
there and we went over Erik the Red and The Hauksbäk,
and damned if the pages in those concerning Vinland
weren't forgeries too. The ink gave it away--not its
composition, which was about right, but merely how long
it had been on that paper. Which was thirteenth century
paper, I might add! The forger had done a super job.
But the sagas had been tampered with sometime in the
early nineteen century."
"But those are masterpieces of world literature," a
volunteer laborer exclaimed, round-eyed; the ads for
volunteer labor had not included a description of the
primary investigator's hypothesis.
"I know," the professor said irritably, and shrugged.
He saw a chunk of peat on the ground, picked it up
and threw it on the blaze. After a bit it flared up.
"It's like watching dirt burn," he said absently, staring
into the flames.