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So a drop ceiling is simply a cover---in plain sight---for something Wolfe does not reveal at all. Yes, that's about right. It could be a ship---if the hull is both plumb and l…
11 Dec 2010, 17:09
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I'm glad you don't take my questioning too personally! Here's a quick and dirty Googled bit on the number 5: Now as we approach the meaning of Five we begin to extend ourselves e…
11 Dec 2010, 17:06
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I'm with you up until the last sentence. The Commonwealth is a place where all sorts of sex are common, where there may no actual slaves but people are in fact enslaved and domi…
11 Dec 2010, 17:03
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My 2 cents ... He's an employee of sorts. A pentagram is a pentagram, and a row is a row. The number 5 is probably more to the point, and that is what the pentagram represents a…
11 Dec 2010, 12:52
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But drop ceilings are found in basements and office buildings. Are they also found in ships?…
11 Dec 2010, 12:40
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Sure, Satan and the Devil are usually the same, and Satan and Lucifer were both characters in Milton, with Lucifer becoming Satan (but not the Devil). The Serpent is a guise of S…
11 Dec 2010, 04:27
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I think you're saying they represent different things. I would agree.…
11 Dec 2010, 00:43
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That's a creative use of "time-hallowed." ;)…
11 Dec 2010, 00:41
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It especially makes sense if you consider the curse to be an affliction that has its own rules, hidden from us. If it's not tied to the full moon, nor a nightly occurrence, it ca…
11 Dec 2010, 00:07
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Both have ink and feathers on them?…
11 Dec 2010, 00:03
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Well, the crow is stronger than the eye, for sure.…
10 Dec 2010, 23:12
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You're doing all this at work? No wonder! ;) OK. I see that as a huge leap, assuming unrelated abilities to be parallel, but now I see why you think Inire can be a shapeshifter. …
10 Dec 2010, 22:57
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Hah! I wouldn't take it that far. But Lee has a point---this is getting like the "vine" discussion. The opinion of the average American is hardly relevant here. Has he or she re…
10 Dec 2010, 22:05
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I don't think it's unreasonable either. I'm only saying he's going to have to choose one of them before he or anyone else gets very far in looking for resemblances. They are well…
10 Dec 2010, 22:01
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It's possible that you don't know enough to see the value in distinctions between them. The character Lucifer is largely derived from Milton. The Devil is an American folk charac…
10 Dec 2010, 21:14
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I get a line from Page 37 and 38 with "No preview available" and no buttons.…
10 Dec 2010, 20:33
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How can the Devil (Serpent, Lucifer) serve anyone but himself?…
10 Dec 2010, 20:27
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Page 36 did not appear for me. The cover of this book is brilliant.…
10 Dec 2010, 20:25
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Lee, I'm not trying to be unfair. The Devil runs a very different kind of game than does Lucifer. They are not the same. If you say Devil, I read Devil. If you say Lucifer, I rea…
10 Dec 2010, 20:20
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Point taken. Which makes Erebus a plainer Devil, though Inire may be little better than him.…
10 Dec 2010, 19:37
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A fair question. The Devil is a gross caricature, of course---I do not expect horns and a tail. But I do expect: (1) a global or limited-universal presence (2) some sense of the…
10 Dec 2010, 19:05
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Only if the dream is the dream of a wolf. ;) Or perhaps Wolfe's dog dreaming he is a wolf dreaming of being a man ...…
10 Dec 2010, 18:43
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Exactly. But being a werewolf is certainly a kind of curse, and one the Mother might impose.…
10 Dec 2010, 17:50
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Missed that one. Does Latro fail to remember anything in the morning because he ran around as a wolf all night? Plausible, if difficult to imagine.…
10 Dec 2010, 17:44
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I see. All that is great---Inire definitely performs "necessary" evil and in that sense is both vizier and witch doctor. He is an anvil of sorts. He is like the great mass of hum…
10 Dec 2010, 17:41
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Lee I'm a little baffled. I agree with your insight that Wolfe not only writes backward from a vision of the ending, as he has said, but he fills in the details of a vision over…
10 Dec 2010, 17:23
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Had no idea he was a young stage magician. I'm glad he found a better use for his obviously quick fingers! And btw: no offense to psycho Crimson fans, right? ;)…
10 Dec 2010, 17:12
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The Autarchy is a thin thread, yes, but its very strength is the lives of commoners. One could argue, easily, that the people are always a higher source of authority than blood o…
10 Dec 2010, 14:49
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Allusion. An *allusion* is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology>, or w…
10 Dec 2010, 01:55
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Just what I was thinking. And these vines are on another planet and seem to be parasitic---regardless, they are not and cannot be of the grape family, nor ivy, nor any other we kno…
09 Dec 2010, 18:58
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Thanks for the feedback on my little proposal. ;) It seems that two of the verifiable clues are ruled out, leaving only Proust and memory and Wolfean narrative inversions in consid…
09 Dec 2010, 18:52
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How did you get Fripp on there? I am impressed. I am not worthy etc. --- On Thu, 12/9/10, Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote: From: Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butch…
09 Dec 2010, 17:14
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That is an excellent variation on a theme. Certainly the author is even more like a demiurge.…
09 Dec 2010, 12:23
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Although the cloning clue could always be a red herring, meant to suggest "Cloning was not yet possible, but a parallel mechanism should be sought."…
09 Dec 2010, 12:21
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"The rest" meaning vampires and such. Only one mechanism is needed to make something occur, such as an old, sick person being young again. If you have cloning, that's it. That's …
09 Dec 2010, 12:19
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Because you are a servant of Erebus? Seriously, while your points are well taken, I have always thought I have observed another dynamic in operation. There are several personali…
09 Dec 2010, 01:37
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What about his association with a certain Rush album from the 1970s? Is Wolfe a Rush fan? I think we need to explore all possible angles.…
08 Dec 2010, 23:41
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But let's not confuse vines with lianas! --- On Wed, 12/8/10, Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> wrote: From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> Subject…
08 Dec 2010, 21:37
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I completely agree with this. Inire has many roles, and as you say, he is not the only one to do so, by far. And yes, he is the true, let's say, "controller" of the Commonwealth, w…
08 Dec 2010, 19:35
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Here's the main problem I see with this logic. "Aliens" are by definition multimorphic: they come from a near infinity of planets. That is their attraction. Even the three speci…
08 Dec 2010, 13:49
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Interesting. I'm baffled as to why "Cloning" appears as a clue but not as a theory. To me, there are 3 "obvious" Clues, with a capital C---that is, objectively verifiable as sig…
08 Dec 2010, 13:02
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nice! It's actually a good idea to have a list like this, although I'd approach it a little differently, trying to emphasize the organizing principle. I'd make #1? Gothic space ope…
07 Dec 2010, 20:04
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Also, the destruction of New New York by alien space ships in the 23rd century. --- On Tue, 12/7/10, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: From: Ant?nio Pedro Marqu…
07 Dec 2010, 19:14
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One can imagine many simple reasons for a narrator to turn away from a memory. I think this situation arises often in Wolfe, and usually it's something really basic. When the conte…
07 Dec 2010, 19:10
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I'm confused---why then do I have the names for all the epigraphs? Perhaps I did some research; that rings a bell.... At any rate, the best argument against G.W. being the source o…
07 Dec 2010, 18:41
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Yes, Wolfe takes his books very seriously. That was something that immediately attracted me to him: he takes his literary in-jokes to the logical limit.…
07 Dec 2010, 02:13
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Possibly. My reading of Mist was that Wolfe was simply mimicking even more closely what editors of Greek and Latin, through the centuries, actually did and still do---since Latro…
07 Dec 2010, 01:59
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We can never be completely sure of anything, can we? ;) Look! is that the Conciliator behind you?…
07 Dec 2010, 01:46
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James, you are on a roll this past week.…
07 Dec 2010, 01:35
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Sorry---I wasn't clear. I'm just saying that's how it's done in translated editions of a work in another language. Wolfe would stick closely to the form he is aping (parodying? a…
07 Dec 2010, 01:33
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