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Adam, re: the end-of-the-world hypothesis: I don't know that I originated it, but: (from Aug. 25, 1998) Adam also wrote, about THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE: Because although the book …
08 Dec 2000, 19:33
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Dan'l/Blattid wrote (among other things): Good point. Still, it's not something he does very often. Certainly Wolfe's works on the whole do not tend to attack the underlying rea…
08 Dec 2000, 15:55
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Hmmm... This seems to bring us back to the whole question of how to know postmodernism (and without the aid of a SF oracle like Damon Knight's finger). Barth I will agree is post…
08 Dec 2000, 13:22
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Rostrum: I will hold comment until you are done with IGJ, to avoid prejudicing your reading. But I must say: I think it's slightly better, which is saying a lot.…
21 Nov 2000, 15:04
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One thing that has always struck me about 5HC is this: I think one of Wolfe's central ideas in the work is that a man is more than the sum of his genes and his environment, more th…
15 Nov 2000, 02:44
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Nutria said: I think Wolfe is fairly straightforward in that interview, but I also don't recall a lot of the kinds of questions he tends to be devious about ("who killed who?," "w…
06 Nov 2000, 18:55
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The other difficulty with using Wolfe's interviews is that, while they are useful in a general way, Wolfe is, I think, intentionally gnomic and tricky. Recall the answers to the q…
06 Nov 2000, 13:06
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These two quotes strengthen Dan'l's hypothesis about the Doctors being guides in the afterlife as well. A pile of lives in the waiting room, indeed. Hmmm... Which brings in a po…
27 Oct 2000, 14:28
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mantis' latest insight snipped. This fits in nicely with the possible setting of Den's narration in the far future. Not only can the figure listening to Hannah's story be the rea…
26 Oct 2000, 00:34
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Wonderful continuing PEACE discussion, everybody. Some points of my own, taking off from Dan'l: Hmmm... The desk is also, in my reading, the center of Weer's afterlife. The ele…
25 Oct 2000, 20:42
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mantis, blattid: Fabulous work on PEACE! One very minor thing I'll add immediately: the lich and something else that I can't find right now (damnit, I need a searchable text ver…
19 Oct 2000, 16:25
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mantis, blattid: Fabulous work on PEACE! One very minor thing I'll add immediately: the lich and something else that I can't find right now (damnit, I need a searchable text ver…
19 Oct 2000, 16:25
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<vast snippage> Very nice, mantis. On the "dead Den" thesis, I think it is proper to see this as a purgatorial fantasy. In my opinion, the final moments of the book do indicate …
17 Oct 2000, 17:03
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So when did the disaster happen, anyway? I saw Michael's post about PEACE, then a great silence (but I assumed nobody wanted to talk about PEACE, which discouraged me from saying …
17 Oct 2000, 15:05
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Thanks to alga, I read "The Night Chough." The Scylla element there is indisputable, but it hasn't convinced me that the other suggested places in LONG/SHORT sun are instances of …
19 Sep 2000, 14:32
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Does anyone remember where Wolfe says something to the effect of "I'm always stunned when a reader asks me why two people in one of my stories describe an event differently. Don't…
11 Sep 2000, 15:58
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There are certainly some gnostic-seeming elements, but I think the key may be to realize that Wolfe (even more than, say, Flannery O'Connor, who was often seen as writing despairin…
31 Aug 2000, 13:28
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Alga spoke thus: Although I think we're all waiting for the other shoe to drop and reveal what all the Scylla foreshadowing in Short Sun so far is about. But if it turns out to be…
24 Aug 2000, 18:41
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You definitely had the idea before I did--I didn't read Long Sun until well after Exodus had been published (had to dodge spoilers on this list for a while). While I agree with Nu…
24 Aug 2000, 16:26
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Hmmm... Alga's mapping to Origen's ideas is interesting, but I'm not convinced. Universalism doesn't strike me as being particularly Wolfean, given the number especially of short…
22 Aug 2000, 11:17
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I'm with alga--Horn as an inhuma seems pointless and wrong. I may turn out to the wrong, but this seems like another example of Clute's real talent for working out Wolfe's mysteri…
16 Aug 2000, 10:30
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Wolfe's political views are probably not easy to peg. Wolfe talks about his political beliefs in Nutria's interview (http://world.std.com/~pduggan/gwjbj1.html#pol). I would suspe…
16 Aug 2000, 10:16
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I just read the Lafferty story, "You Can't Go Back," that Adam pointed out. Even Wolfe doesn't seem to be up to the task of imitating Lafferty--while "Junie Moon" works ok as a tr…
15 Aug 2000, 11:30
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Speaking of Crowley and DAEMONOMANIA, would it be a good diea to start reading these now? If they are like the volumes of the NEW SUN books, and suffer in isolation, I'd prefer to…
11 Aug 2000, 11:34
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"Technophobia" or whatever, evidence does not seem to indicate that Wolfe would be better off spending his time surfing the net or reading email. I say, if his net-free state prod…
02 Aug 2000, 16:51
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William said: I agree with this strongly. In my opinion the change stems at least partly from something (fairly) simple: Horn is no longer ruling a city "as Silk." Horn is freed…
01 Aug 2000, 08:46
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Preserving spoiler space (didn't on my last post, sorry) Adam said: Sorry if I gave the impression I think this is the secret. I don't, but I think that your point 4: is someho…
25 Jul 2000, 09:57
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Narwhal said: I think it's the same reason why the Neighbors won't tell Horn about their gods: it's better if he comes to figure it out for himself (with some hints). That the Ne…
25 Jul 2000, 08:29
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I finished this on Friday, but haven't had access to email over the weekend. Also, Saturday I talked at length with another Wolfe addict who had just finished it, which clarified …
24 Jul 2000, 08:37
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I read this recently, thought it was a entertaining, a nice little tribute to Lafferty with an interesting "Gene Wolfe, militia man" undercurrent, but nothing special. Did I miss …
17 Jul 2000, 08:42
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I found it in the Borders at the World Trade Center (random chance-- I was just idly scanning the shelves while waiting to meet somebody for lunch). They only had one copy. Argh.…
17 Jul 2000, 08:29
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Thanks, Robert and William! A side note: I "stole" (with attributions I'm sure no one paid any attention to) much of my high school graduation speech from LITTLE, BIG and Eliot'…
07 Jul 2000, 13:55
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Ok, I'm trying to find where in New Sun Severian says something roughly like "Our one unforgivable sin is that we remain capable only of being what we are." I can't find it anywhe…
05 Jul 2000, 10:29
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William Ansley said (congratulating Allen): In fact, it seems more than just plausible that Smoky's middle initial doesn't stand for anything--remember that he wears "A Suit of Tr…
27 Jun 2000, 08:18
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Adam spoke: Well, not that I recall, but then in Long Sun many of the more significant "foretold" events don't occur until later books (and some aren't really clear until a second…
22 Jun 2000, 10:00
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Rostrum said: Thanks. That's what I was trying to say. Lots of fiction does this, but seldom are the people in the fiction TRYING to forsee the future and managing to do so--whe…
21 Jun 2000, 15:34
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alga said: Yes. In fact, the "Silk for Calde" graffiti shows up shortly after, and Horn lets us in on the (strong likelyhood anyway) that it wasn't one of the schoolboys who wrot…
20 Jun 2000, 12:02
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(In response to Alga's revelation of the mastermind in Long Sun): Aha. I ruled out Crane because I thought you were speaking more generally--his -initial- meeting with Silk is "a…
19 Jun 2000, 20:30
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Alga: Sometime back (archives taking forever to come up for me) you suggested that the "action" of Long Sun can be attributed largely to one non-divine character. I'm rereading L…
16 Jun 2000, 10:17
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Alga spoke: He certainly did to some extent--somewhere or other there's a "conversation" published in which Lewis and some other people (Brian Aldiss is the only one I remember) s…
29 May 2000, 16:35
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Alga said: It certainly seems that Vodalus is at least as opportunistic as anything else--he seems more Nietzschean aristocrat than Ascian ideologue. On the other hand, he does r…
24 May 2000, 17:06
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The idea, as I understand it, isn't that Communism is Pelagianism, rather that it's a kind of secular adaptation of certain ideas with a Pelagian flavor. The key idea is that Pela…
21 May 2000, 13:30
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It would make considerable sense as an intentional linkage. Vodalus, for one thing, is an ally of the Ascians. Ascia is, among other things, Wolfe's version of a Communist state.…
19 May 2000, 11:50
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Hmmm... I think I know what I'm reading as soon as I finish the Lafferty fest that I'm indulging in at the moment. Thanks to all for the various useful insights on LB. Michael: …
30 Apr 2000, 15:00
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Perhaps the character in a book reading and the Catholic parable reading aren't incompatible: Chesterton, after all, quite a few times talks about Christianity as being highly in …
19 Apr 2000, 12:07
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Hmmm... This is definitely a possible source of Horn's name, except that the symbolism is the reverse of (ivory true, horn false). To wit (from Fitzgerald's Aeneid translation): …
14 Apr 2000, 12:47
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Cosmicomics is (sort of) science fiction, although definitely not <genre> science fiction. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32…
23 Feb 2000, 21:57
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"If On a Winter's Night a Traveler" was translated into English by William Weaver, who also does Eco's translations. It's my favorite Calvino book-- probably because it's a tribut…
22 Feb 2000, 10:04
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I'm sure Wolfe's come across Borges references to Swedenborg, and perhaps read some--but really the idea of dead protagonists (from "The Other Dead Man", PEACE, etc.) is not necess…
11 Feb 2000, 13:18
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Dennis G. Berdanis asked some questions, I think I can answer a few: Hard to say what precisely caused it--however, the idea is not new to Wolfe-- "In Looking Glass Castle" and "M…
06 Feb 2000, 11:03
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