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Dave Langford said: Thank goodness--I just haven't read the Covenant books in so long that my memory of the details is slowly eroding. This lessens the spooky resemblance conside…
31 Jan 2000, 12:35
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Thanks, but oops--I may have slandered Dozois if that's how it came across-- unless he's spoken in another forum, I'm referring to his comments in the intro. to whatever Year's Bes…
30 Jan 2000, 16:09
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I don't agree with Robert's theory, but it sounds more plausible to me than Max. Del. If Wolfe intended Max. Del., I think he signally failed to put in enough hints for us to pars…
30 Jan 2000, 11:09
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Actually, the whole ring business is going to bother me until I know what is going on with it, because it reminds me of something very strongly: Thomas Covenant. Yes--Horn rapes …
30 Jan 2000, 11:03
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<snipping Nutria's nice analysis> One thing--I think the twins are not necessarily "American white girls"-- isn't their father, the tennis player, Mediterranean? My copy is at ho…
28 Jan 2000, 12:47
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Ah, but it's always been my opinion (and I'm fairly sure I've read somewhere an essay by someone agreeing with it) that Amis, while falsely accused of "sexism," could be quite righ…
28 Jan 2000, 12:34
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In fact, thinking about this--doesn't Severian? Horn? Silk? someone somewhere say "we all destroy what we love best." THIS is the sense in which Emory kills the coyote and his s…
24 Jan 2000, 18:39
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Ah, we're all using a very loose interpretation of "kill" (at least I am, and assume Swanwick, mantis are doing the same) here. Emory's LOVE for the coyote, trying to tame it, slo…
24 Jan 2000, 17:57
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Hmmm... Yeah, I caught the Tamar reference--I hadn't thought of the daughter-of-the-future possibility--but this is a clone of a step-daughter if so, which IMO makes Emory conside…
21 Jan 2000, 17:07
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Allan Lloyd said: Hmmm... Not for me. The behavior of the twins convinced me that the accusations were false--since they (unless, as John Kessel has proposed, the story is a "u…
21 Jan 2000, 12:42
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I also thought it was just Mucor possessing the fish at first--although Horn, who knows about Mucor, ignores this possibility, and there are the mysterious references to someone el…
21 Jan 2000, 12:16
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alga said: True. I doubt we have enough to figure out the whole secret (or even the key). However, Wolfe is also good for sticking clues to Big Secrets early in the text and then…
20 Jan 2000, 10:01
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He's definitely in _Jurgen_ (I haven't actually read _Jurgen_ or any other Cabell, but I was told this long ago by someone who did their Master's Thesis on Cabell when they notice…
18 Jan 2000, 13:18
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And only with Wolfe would there be considerable argument about WHICH of his stories are, in fact, ghost stories, and who's haunting who. Question re: "The Ziggurat" When Emery is…
16 Jan 2000, 10:48
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So far, although I just finished "And When They Appear," I think this collection is good but grim, even for Wolfe--who does not tend to be cheery at short lengths. I've read "The …
12 Jan 2000, 12:49
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mantis says: I tend to think of "Behold the Man" as being less anti-religious than a lot of Moorcock that seems less directly critical of religion. Certainly not positive, per se…
17 Dec 1999, 13:29
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OK. I will agree that this thread has degenerated to that point (as it did last time), but I've got to elaborate on what I said above. First of all, my evidence would consist of …
25 Nov 1999, 11:47
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(writing from old account) Ori, the best argument "justifying the ways of God to man" in BOTNS is not a quick quotation I can pluck out--although Severian, whose meditations I do …
24 Nov 1999, 11:42
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I'll give it a shot. Nutria's suggestion about Sev's ho-hum career as Conciliator being remembered because it reminded humanity of an earlier and considerably more significant Con…
23 Nov 1999, 11:32
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But Ori, as I pointed out, I read BOTNS when I didn't know anything about Wolfe (other than, from having stumbled across "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" novella in an anthology, that …
23 Nov 1999, 11:18
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Well, I like to think it's more complex than that--we sure were a pain to have around, apparently, but the hieros (IMO) like us enough to do us a favor in spite of all. I think th…
20 Nov 1999, 22:01
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Ori: Ok, it's not that we're reading Chapter 34 differently, as far as what it says. It's that the meaning "behind" those things is something we approach very differently. First …
20 Nov 1999, 19:18
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Well, you can interpret BOTNS in this manner, but I think you've failed to provide an argument that convinces those who believe Wolfe succeeded in doing what he set out to do that …
20 Nov 1999, 15:46
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Re: Noah Hmmm... It may not be that universal a flood--there are clearly islands and survivors. In fact, I would guess it's returning coastlines to where they are in our day--ma…
19 Nov 1999, 12:24
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Aha. Thanks, Roy. I was under a misapprehension--I think we're in much closer agreement than I would have thought about things--our final interpretations still differ, but are b…
18 Nov 1999, 18:41
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Continuing the "Tintin" post's tradition of offering spurious sources for Wolfe's ideas: "He has a way of suddenly materializing at one's side like one of those Indian blokes who …
17 Nov 1999, 12:59
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(All re: Roy's post) This interpretation of BOTNS can be supported from the text, with a lot of work, but I strongly disagree with it. It seems to me that you're seeing smalland…
17 Nov 1999, 12:57
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One thing it made me think of was the Venus de Milo, especially re: the story about her arms in PEACE. Perhaps Mother arranged for her to lose her arm, knowing this would make Hor…
15 Nov 1999, 12:09
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Now, now, Alga. Wolfe is coy, but he's not all that coy--it's pretty easy to infer from interviews, fiction, and essays that Wolfe would be described religiously as Roman Catholic…
14 Nov 1999, 14:16
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Ah, but whether this is true or not, I think it's not at all consistent with the theme of BOTNS--the judgement in URTH shows that all of the "loves, hates, etc." we've seen in NEW …
10 Nov 1999, 12:06
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Ah, perhaps--but I think a better statement for Wolfe's work would be: the meaning of life is that there's a lot more meaning to life than you're ever likely to manage to grasp -…
09 Nov 1999, 10:25
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Babbie, I think. Hmmm... This listing makes very clear just how much is hinted at but not answered in OBW. I think that, by comparison, SHADOW OF THE TORTURER left a lot less op…
08 Nov 1999, 13:03
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Yes, although from my brief skim, Dawkins does so in poor fashion--I disagree with Dawkins on (most) things, but usually he's at least an honest battler, heading straight for his t…
07 Nov 1999, 14:32
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Perservere with Long Sun, if for no other reason, because it leads towards Short Sun--which is, I think, more what you're looking for--on evidence of first volume, it's top-quality…
07 Nov 1999, 14:11
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Clute's reviews in SF Weekly have tended to be like that--Clute at his most pontificating and (usually) least enlightening. The Hal Clement review is the one I like best, for some…
05 Nov 1999, 13:02
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Well, Severian TELLS us he's a liar, etc. But I'm still unclear about what you and Clute think he's lying about in a major way--Wolfe's narrators are, in my opinion, for the most …
05 Nov 1999, 12:56
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Actually, in CLAUDIUS THE GOD, he does just that--using (IIRC, it's been a good while since I read it) elephants in the battle to frighten the British. Claudius is actually (in Gra…
03 Nov 1999, 15:08
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I believe there are some way back in the Urth archives. I know I asked something or other, but I can't remember what. I think long ago Alga used _There Are Doors_ in her "three …
03 Nov 1999, 12:41
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Patrick-- Well, part of my point in the whole modernism debate was that, because he avoids their techniques, Wolfe is at the least pretty darn accessible for a modernist. While I…
02 Nov 1999, 10:21
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Maybe the best distinction is one of underlying epistemology/ontology, as it applies to non-literary things that can be labeled modernist or post-modernist as well. Modernists bel…
28 Oct 1999, 12:13
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And someone (I forget who) on here has pointed out that Cyby is described as roughly what Wolfe might have looked at when he wrote BOTNS, so we have Wolfe as the humble apprentice …
27 Oct 1999, 17:04
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Yes. Of the friends I've convinced (forced at gunpoint if necessary) to read BOTNS, I've had three reactions: one, very well-read in Heinlein/Asimov/Clarke (and, though he hates …
27 Oct 1999, 13:08
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Daniel: To be sure, Wolfe's concern with memory and perception is a very modernist idea, and BOTNS (and all of Wolfe's fiction) is highly concerned with not just the stories told …
26 Oct 1999, 18:54
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I also agree that if you had to assign a critical label to Wolfe, it would be as a modernist (much more so than a post-modernist). I suspect, though, that the most important liter…
26 Oct 1999, 13:40
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Robert Aickman's collection COLD HAND IN MINE (which I strongly recommend to all Lupines) opens with a quotation from Sacheverell Sitwell's "For Want of the Golden City": "In the …
25 Oct 1999, 11:33
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Well, I'm not sure there are nearly as many narrative comparisons, but the overall idea of Silk leading the people out of bondage to Typhon & co. in the Whorl to arrival in a new l…
18 Oct 1999, 15:48
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Here we go: Galatians 4:13-15:…
18 Oct 1999, 12:54
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I'm sending this to both lists, since the general issue of narrative reliability seems to be coming up on both lists. I'll try to avoid OBW spoilers, which shouldn't be too hard--…
18 Oct 1999, 12:35
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I'm sending this to both lists, since the general issue of narrative reliability seems to be coming up on both lists. I'll try to avoid OBW spoilers, which shouldn't be too hard--…
18 Oct 1999, 12:35
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What Nutria and I are saying is that whatever the truth value of "Matthew invented some stuff" is, it's unlikely that WOLFE thinks he did, which is an argument for giving THE BOOK …
17 Oct 1999, 16:31
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