-
Strictly speaking, this "proves" only that somebody died, not that Weer did. Of course, I agree that it was Weer; but if somebody were to deny it, I wouldn't be able to prove them…
08 Dec 2000, 18:04
-
An excellent post; I was going to defend my position, but you do it better than I would have. There are just a couple of amendments I would make. [snip] [snip] I would analyze …
08 Dec 2000, 11:17
-
Without reopening the question of intent (which I may get around to posting on one of these days) I'll say that PEACE, to me, presents itself as having been carefully planned out b…
07 Dec 2000, 11:17
-
Thanks for the thoughtful response; I'll do my best to reply in kind. I agree that Wolfe had something definite in mind; whether it was a coherent biography of Weer, or a collecti…
05 Dec 2000, 13:30
-
[snip] I don't think this is correct. On p. 12 (Harper & Row) Weer says: "I begin to go through my pants pockets looking for the knife; it is not there, and I remember that I hav…
17 Nov 2000, 17:45
-
Thanks for posting this, Roy! I like references <g>. I also think it's a good thing, with so many conjectures floating around, to state the evidence (or lack of evidence) upon wh…
12 Nov 2000, 23:48
-
Many thanks for posting this, Robert. It's a bit difficult to reconcile what Wolfe says here with his statements re the house in the Jordan interview that I cited earlier. The be…
06 Nov 2000, 11:44
-
Thanks. I actually got the part four-detective story connection first, and that encouraged me to go after the others. Well, I was seeing the bookshop as just an allusion, not evi…
01 Nov 2000, 21:29
-
I keep meaning to post my reactions to the Doctors-as-guides theory, but never getting around to it. Maybe tomorrow. (But as long as I'm on the subject, why did Wolfe put in the …
28 Oct 2000, 00:53
-
I think we'd need at least one more splice, maybe two. On the page after Weer is underweight, we have this dialogue: "There's not a man in my plant I'd talk to the way you tal…
27 Oct 2000, 14:04
-
Once again, a fascinating post. Too much to digest at once, but a few quick questions and comments: Silently? I don't see where in the story the marid makes this condition. But…
23 Oct 2000, 22:38
-
"when" is correct, according to the 1975 first edition. Is it omitted from your edition? To me, "that paragon of paladins" sounds sarcastic; even in a fairy tale, I can't see som…
23 Oct 2000, 11:02
-
In a way, though, Peacock's and Macafee's courtships are inversions of the fairy tale. Peacock discovers rare, hidden things but (presumably unlike the prince of gnomes) keeps the…
22 Oct 2000, 12:29
-
And the link you provide cites "There Will Come Soft Rains." I actually hadn't been thinking of that one; just the idea of a boy meeting a whole bunch of fictional or legendary Ch…
20 Sep 2000, 15:33
-
I'm not comforted, since he's already been molested (Charlie tells him "'We'll take off our clothes and have some fun, Chris. _Then_ we'll go to bed.'" (195, emphasis mine)) and t…
20 Sep 2000, 15:25
-
Wolfe explicitly mentions Baum in his introduction; he says: "You will find much here that recalls Oz; you will also find the eeriness that L. Frank Baum set out to banish from his…
07 Sep 2000, 13:48
-
That's my impression too. According to IGJ, the extreme poverty Horn and Nettle underwent during their first years on Blue was caused partly by Nettle's being pregnant with Sinew …
02 Sep 2000, 15:46
-
And if humans offered themselves knowing that it would result in the inhumi losing their intelligence, they would not be acting in the spirit of not harming others, so the inhumi w…
28 Aug 2000, 14:47
-
Perhaps, but I don't recall anywhere else where Horn indicates a belief in the Outsider's multiple nature. And even if he did, the unexplained shift from singular to plural in the…
10 Aug 2000, 17:56
-
I think I'm the one who started the "physical description" bit, and since the passage you quote is the one I was thinking of, I was evidently wrong. What happened, I think, was th…
09 Aug 2000, 23:29
-
I don't think that this is the secret, for a couple of reasons. Fr one thing, it doesn't fit several of the things we know about the secret: it doesn't explain why the inhumi drin…
09 Aug 2000, 23:11
-
Not to me. What the Neighbor says is "'I can send your spirit into someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying....Then there will be one whole man there, instead of two d…
09 Aug 2000, 22:55
-
But, as I've said before, the problem isn't just that he denies being Silk. It's that he never mentions being in Silk's body, and does things which suggest that he doesn't know wh…
07 Aug 2000, 19:17
-
The Golden Rule includes it, true, but is more stringent. Not wishing your neighbor dead is sort of the minimal program to the Golden Rule's maximal program. (Although if unconsc…
02 Aug 2000, 23:44
-
The actual passage is: "You sell your own kind to us for weapons and treasure," she told him [Hide] almost apologetically, "and your cruelty and the more numerous you are, t…
02 Aug 2000, 22:56
-
I've been including the spoiler space because everybody else has and nobody's objected till now, but I'm dubious of its utility. It's useless for those who get the digest, unless …
26 Jul 2000, 08:40
-
That last possibility hadn't occurred to me, but it's an intriguing one, and seems quite possible in view of Horn's special relationship with inhumi. (He also has a special relati…
24 Jul 2000, 20:54
-
Do they have mirrors on Blue? I don't remember, but the level of technology is low enough that it's possible that they don't. But if they do, it reinforces my point. If Horn wer…
23 Jul 2000, 23:19
-
But, IIRC, at the start of OBW Horn is looking for Silk by circulating Silk's physical description. Even if Horn believed that Silk's spirit had somehow been transferred to anothe…
23 Jul 2000, 14:55
-
Of course, we don't (I didn't, anyway) feel any sense of urgency to find out about the war, since it comes out of left field in the story as a whole, and since Horn has very little…
23 Jul 2000, 10:29
-
Perhaps I should say that while I put a spoiler warning on my post to be on the safe side, and while you shouldn't read it if you want to come to IGJ absolutely fresh, I didn't dis…
19 Jul 2000, 20:53
-
I read it and posted a brief message in April of this year or thereabouts. The only thing I have to add to what you say is that it's based on a specific Lafferty story, "You Can't…
17 Jul 2000, 20:47
-
I thought of this interpretation, but rejected it on the grounds that the narrator's vocabulary is (or seems) straightforward, without paraphrases of this type. My feeling is that…
27 Jun 2000, 09:53
-
Here's something on "The Haunted Boardinghouse," which I had intended to post earlier but never got around to. In your excellent post on the similarities between THB and LITTLE, B…
24 Jun 2000, 16:56
-
We know it as both (or at least I do), having heard you Brits sing "God Save the Queen" in films and such. --Adam…
22 Jun 2000, 09:53
-
Right--this, and what follows, is where I got the 68 years from. Or am I missing your point? This I don't see. I'd have to look up the text again (I don't have it with me) but …
19 Jun 2000, 09:51
-
A big, belated thank you to alga for posting this. Another thank you for asking nearly all the questions I suggested, in what sounds like nearly my wording, which I hadn't expecte…
11 Jun 2000, 12:34
-
I'm confused. I don't see how my argument presupposed that Sev was the Pelagian. In fact, although I didn't say so explicitly, I was arguing against Carlton Greene's suggestion t…
23 May 2000, 09:41
-
As I understand it, the orthodox, anti-Pelagian position does not deny the existence of free will, as Nutria points out; nor does it deny that the unsaved can perform virtuous acts…
21 May 2000, 09:17
-
Making Eigenblick's henchmen the positive deck? But Eigenblick regards himself as an ally of the fairies, though they cheat him in the end. And Eigenblick and the fairies collabo…
12 May 2000, 09:16
-
I guess I didn't mean anything very precise; I was conflating "the Renaissance magic worldview" with belief in the existence and importance of the fairies. Ariel may or may not be…
12 May 2000, 09:06
-
I'm not certain at all, although I may sometimes have lapsed into expressing my views without qualifiers. My belief--or, to be even more precise, my impression--is based upon two …
08 May 2000, 21:29
-
JC amy indeed have Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (although I don't see much resemblance with LB except for the party at the end, and JC surely didn't need to read Chaucer to get th…
06 May 2000, 17:04
-
The only reasons I didn't request it are that I don't have my copy of THE DEEP with me and remember almost nothing about it, and I don't know if my dinky laptop can even handle att…
05 May 2000, 08:51
-
I second the "kind and helpful" part. Many thanks, Nutria, for quuoting from so much of the foreword. I don't know anything about the Chaucer text, so I don't know if it's an ada…
04 May 2000, 23:34
-
Those are also good functions, although the American/British dichotomy is raised more pointedly in the very next section. I'm still not convinced the section deserves the size and…
03 May 2000, 00:12
-
Without having reread the entire section, I would say that since Alice does love Smoky, the idea that she may be losing his love upsets her. (See "Seized by the Tale," Book Two, C…
01 May 2000, 19:33
-
But Hawksquill's orrery is of a Ptolemaic universe, and therefore doesn't run by itself. Smoky's if of a Newtonian universe, and so does. (At least so Hawksquill says.) I agree …
01 May 2000, 09:02
-
Here's my take on the meaning of Dr. Death's closing words. Just as Ransom will temporarily destroy Dr. Death and escape the island, but will relive his ordeal every time Tackman …
21 Apr 2000, 23:22
-
I think that when the editors say "Old Viron," they are including its territory as well (we are told in the list of "Proper Names in the Text" that Endroad is subject to Viron). I…
28 Aug 1956, 00:02
Urth Net