Posted from 2 addresses as James Jordan, James B. Jordan
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I suspect so. Compare the Bible with the Garden of Eden as "deep sources" for the pair. The Library undergirds (literally) the Commonweath civilization. The Garden is also underg…
21 Apr 2003, 14:41
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At 12:01 AM 4/11/2003, Blattid cited: Though different, this reminds me of *The Little Prince* -- the fox's explanation of why the Prince prizes his rose above all other…
11 Apr 2003, 10:59
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Without compleatly buying into your thesis (yet), there might be two differences between Pas and Silk: 1. Pas has two heads, and these are probably stylized to look simi…
08 Mar 2003, 17:22
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Just a quick note: Keep pursuing this. Wolfe is certainly "into" clones, in *5th Head,* and there the clones make no progress and are becoming 666, antichrist. The dodecology (?)…
07 Mar 2003, 23:48
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Ah, that may be on the mark. We might have read "Were-Wolfe," which would be in character for all of Wolfe's lupine stories, which are "about" him one way or another. So dropping…
04 Mar 2003, 14:20
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Dunno. And I can't help your other questions either. But I do recall that the Hero has a foot wound, and this has messianic overtones in the Bible (and kingly overtones in Greco-…
03 Mar 2003, 14:36
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I know this is not pointed at me (Pat the Nut) above anyone else, Adam, but I certainly don't think "all" his works are put in a Christian worldview. And of those that are, I don…
16 Feb 2003, 21:38
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Apologies for making two posts when one would have been better. Also, I ask forgiveness if my statement appeared offensive. I should have added ;) As for Wolfe's…
14 Feb 2003, 20:16
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At 01:30 PM 2/14/2003, Blatted blasted: No, of course not. That was my point. But I like the way you rephrased it. PATERA Nutria…
14 Feb 2003, 20:10
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Well, so Wolfe is now apparently out of date! I think 100 years from now, all our SF will be seriously out of date. Conventional SF works in terms of theories about the u…
14 Feb 2003, 19:17
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I took the narrator as female, because of the "games the other guys play" passage. And I agree that it works thematically. Also it "felt" as if the narrator was especially intere…
08 Feb 2003, 19:53
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Razorkittee: Well, there is a lot more going on in Jonah than appears to modern readers, because we don't read as ancient writers wrote. The sea is the gentiles, and th…
28 Jan 2003, 19:22
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Hmm, looking back at the actual statement: "The city searches the sky for a sign, but no sign shall it have but the sign from the fish's belly." Note the opposition of searching …
28 Jan 2003, 15:45
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.... The question is how much of the Jonah//Jesus story does (a) Wolfe catch, and (b) Wolfe intend. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, because of the prophecy…
27 Jan 2003, 20:26
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Now there's yet another one: Tom Wolfe. You know, thinking about it, the madhouse scene in *Free Live Free* might be inspired by Tom Wolfe. It's like the kinds of things he write…
24 Jan 2003, 16:29
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I took it that ALL the dolls were images of the goddess, and that they were designed for children as a way of learning to interact with the goddess. That is, as idols of the godd…
24 Jan 2003, 15:17
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Now there's a thought. Given all the wolves in Wolfe's writings, and his spins on Nero Wolfe, it seems likely that Gene has read the writings of other Wolfes. Perhaps there are l…
24 Jan 2003, 15:13
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Russell rote: A whole lot of what we are brought up on about ancient Greek and Roman religion has been cleaned up. You never hear about the human sacrifices offered bef…
24 Jan 2003, 02:24
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My old *War and Peace* as a list of characters, but in a booklet that can be used as a bookmark. THAT's how to do it! Nutria…
22 Jan 2003, 21:12
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I, Nutria, will tell you. It's the scene at the end of the book, which hints that the helots were massacred by their Spartan owners, immediately after the Spartans freed them for…
21 Jan 2003, 21:25
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Nigel, you might look at: http://www.shakingthrough.net/head2head/reviews/2002/movies_solaris_1972_vs_solaris_2002_2002.htm Nutria…
21 Jan 2003, 03:27
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Well, I feel pretty sure about it. I've written to one of the Tarkovsky websites about this interpretation, to see if I can get any kind of interaction. Solaris is the only Tark …
21 Jan 2003, 03:03
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James, I gotta respectfully defer to your much better advice. Respectfully, Nutria…
20 Jan 2003, 19:13
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Thanks. I had a more negative view of the Tarkovsky the first time I watched it, since I did not know he was a "secret believer" (a point brought out briefly in the Criterion edi…
20 Jan 2003, 18:49
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You might want to skim Bulfinch's Mythology before starting in. You've gotta know a bit, yea more than a bit, about ancient Greek mythology. And if the series continues, you're g…
20 Jan 2003, 18:35
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Latro, man. Latro lives before the Ultimate New Sun arrived in history (the theoanthropos). He lives at the beginning of time, when memory is short, unlike Severian, who lives to…
20 Jan 2003, 18:33
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Well, since my interview and conversations around that time centered on Wolfe's religious beliefs, I can chime in a bit. Wolfe sees himself as a thoroughly orthodox RC, but with …
20 Jan 2003, 18:30
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Perhaps an example of Russian Orthodox SF Fabulation can be considered. I recently rewatched Tarkovsky's SOLARIS ("SolYARis" in Russian), which has been released on DVD by Criter…
20 Jan 2003, 18:08
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Cherubim have four faces. Sphinxes are a one-faced form of the cherub. Being cats, they guard crossroads (as you know if you have a cat; look where he/she likes to sit: where he …
21 Dec 2002, 14:53
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I won't argue that picaresque tales are not still around. I'm happy to be corrected. However: "The word picaresque derives from the Spanish picaro, which means rascal or…
21 Dec 2002, 14:51
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The Cugel stories are in the tradition of "picaresque tales" (tales about rascals) and we've seen very few in recent times, though they were common in Spain in the 16th c. You're…
20 Dec 2002, 23:51
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Me, too. Yes. A different kind of intellectual work, but still profound and subtle -- very subtle. Amen. Preach it, brother! Patera Nutria…
20 Dec 2002, 21:51
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Yeah, that's how I took it. The event looked like a moment of "eternity," and having nothing to do with the passage of time, but Silk could only understand it in temporal terms. …
17 Dec 2002, 18:21
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I'm not sure that's fair. It does enlighten us. Marc says he was both right and wrong about Urth and Blue. Doesn't that tell us quite a bit? Blue is not Urth. But Marc was also r…
17 Dec 2002, 17:53
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But Nutria, Gene said Typhon was aiming at Blue-Green. Doesn't that mean Bluegreen is in the same Banggnab? Yeah. But maybe Typhon really was aiming at Urth-Lune…
17 Dec 2002, 16:05
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Yeah. It's nice to be worth SOMETHING, even if it's only my ... well.... Nutria…
14 Dec 2002, 15:54
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At 05:28 PM 12/3/2002, Blattid wrote back to me: Yeah, but in the interview Wolfe said it was purely supernatural, and my question was whether it as purely "scientific" or both i…
04 Dec 2002, 17:34
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I'm sure I'm forgetting something relevant, but the ability to enter a story while it is told and alter it's telling does not seem to imply time travel but something like telepat…
03 Dec 2002, 19:28
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I should think that everyone admits that Wolfe intends some analogies between the Blue-Green system and the Urth/Ushas-Lune system -- maybe particularly Ushas, since we have *On …
02 Dec 2002, 18:03
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Nutria rejoinds: Makes sense, but I don't think its the only way to read it. You're right I think that serpents are all over these books, and deliberately so. But surely…
27 Nov 2002, 17:36
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The Increate's love for humanity is "tough love." Hard times and death are part of how He loves humanity and brings humanity to maturity. That's not modern "love" but it is basic…
27 Nov 2002, 16:53
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God said to Noah, "Build me an ark." Typhon said to Quetzal, "build me an ark." I don't think so. No reason to think Quetzal was on location. So how's this? Typh…
25 Nov 2002, 23:46
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I would be kind of weirded out to discover that Gene Wolfe had already thought up the whole Long Sun and New Sun and inhumi businesses at the time he wrote New Sun. I mean, gimme…
25 Nov 2002, 23:25
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But then, why would Typhon make himself look like an ogre? My point was that two-headed gods are not unknown, especially in Rome, and Rome is a big deal for Wolfe. In the symboli…
08 Nov 2002, 20:49
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The world is not fallen in the sense of being sinful, but is it "under a curse for the sake of humanity" so that it does not cooperate with sinful humanity. Hence, only as humani…
05 Nov 2002, 12:39
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What you tend to find in all "pagan" religions is something like this: a. Nature gods of streams, woods, etc. Little local gods. Totem tribal spirits. b. Often these are linked wi…
05 Nov 2002, 12:33
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Thanks. Just a couple of quickies. To be sure. But I dimly recall from college days that Aristotle replied to a letter from one of his former students, who expressed con…
04 Nov 2002, 19:43
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At 11:16 AM 11/2/2002, Josh Geller wrote re: my post on Gnosticism: I tend to agree. So I'll refrain from commenting on the rest of your misgivings. They boil down main…
02 Nov 2002, 19:04
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I've been out of the country for this discussion, and have skimmed the posts. A few comments: 1. Gnosticism is just "philosophy + myth." Philosophy, whether Greek or Bud…
02 Nov 2002, 15:27
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Some interesting stuff here, but I have to correct one item before I leave the country for 3 weeks. The notion that the fall of Adam was a good thing since apart from it he would…
09 Oct 2002, 20:33
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