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I'm afraid I don't follow. Who is "this guy"? What do you mean by "spends half his time not having sex and not masturbating"? Half his life? And if we're talking about a real p…
05 Jun 2010, 12:56
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As I said, I don't object to anything in that reply to me. I don't think you have anything to apologize for. I'm sorry to hear you're in pain, though, and I hope it goes away. A…
05 Jun 2010, 04:29
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Not in general. I'm surprised you apparently inferred I did. I thought you might answer my request, though. Maybe I should say I'm not and wasn't criticizing your decision not t…
05 Jun 2010, 02:09
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Now that would be a much bigger surprise for me. Whatever. Jerry Friedman…
04 Jun 2010, 22:47
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I thought that too, and I think many people have. Has anyone ever identified it? Someone said Robert Borski had, but I'd like to see it. Sorry, maybe I should have said Severian…
04 Jun 2010, 22:29
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Can you give me a citation, please? One would be enough for my surprise. Jerry Friedman .…
04 Jun 2010, 21:54
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Again I think it depends on whether Urth is in our future or in a previous universe. If it's in our future, then the story is relatively simple. There was Mary Shelley's dream, w…
04 Jun 2010, 20:55
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It's in the /Journey to the West/. Whether Chinese Buddhism got it from Taoism I don't know. I believe it's also in Tantric Buddhism. I will be very surprised to hear that Judai…
04 Jun 2010, 19:55
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Another striking one is that "Verthandi" meant both "now" and "a gift" in some past language. But I see two possibilities in addition to Mr. Wolfe's starting with the idea that Ur…
04 Jun 2010, 03:45
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> ... I kind of suspect that, though I hadn't connected it with the covenant, since I'm in denial about the existence of /TUotNS/. The bit in …
03 Jun 2010, 22:21
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----- Original Message ---- Here's the quotation (or one version). The "you" is James Jordan. "And as you've said in your letters, I don't think of Severian as being a Christ fi…
03 Jun 2010, 22:15
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I will tell you the directions don't exclude that possibility. The line is, "Try to pass through it by day, with the sun over the right shoulder by morning and later in the left e…
03 Jun 2010, 00:34
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I assumed that the Claw didn't work on Jolenta for the same reason Jonas fell in love with her: she wasn't fully human (any more). Jerry…
02 Jun 2010, 14:42
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Wolfe said in that same interview, "Laura is my idea of what a pagan goddess might be who survived into the Christian world. One of the places where I probably split off from conve…
19 May 2010, 17:50
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As I recall, he had a dream with images from Severian's memory (I feel I should call it a Memory), and Severian had a dream with images from Baldanders's memory or thoughts or futu…
18 May 2010, 17:18
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Gurloes doesn't use the powder and the dildo that we see (as far as I remember). He just has them in case he needs them, but in the situation Severian mentions, Gurloes manages wi…
16 May 2010, 03:47
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I wouldn't consider "This or that line doesn't scan" or "You could improve the rhythm of this line this way" or "On the whole, the meter doesn't work" or similar comments to be sar…
07 May 2010, 05:23
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It's Gene Wolfe's 79th birthday, which seems like a good time to post a link to a poem I wrote that includes Wolfean themes. I add my best wishes for improved health for Mr. Wolfe…
07 May 2010, 05:17
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It's May 7 in Illinois, and this seems like a good time to post a link to a poem I wrote that includes Wolfean themes. I add my best wishes for improved health for Mr. Wolfe. htt…
07 May 2010, 05:08
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I thought this was very interesting, but much of it could apply to a snake as well as a platypus, except maybe the short hair (which is in the direction of snakes, but I guess Wolf…
13 Apr 2010, 17:54
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"Good ol'" looked like toadying, but actually I think the tone was pretty newtral. Jerry Friedman…
08 Mar 2010, 22:01
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An amusing way to play a hoax would be to find out the title of an undergraduate story by a famous writer, forge a story that matches it, and claim to have rediscovered it. Somebo…
08 Mar 2010, 05:33
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Very interesting. I guess Reis does cause Cassie harm by making her fall in love with him, which indirectly leads to very unpleasant consequences for her, including what may be a …
05 Mar 2010, 22:42
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--- On Fri, 3/5/10, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: ... That's interesting because it's exactly what some critics and educators on literary fiction tell you not to do. I…
05 Mar 2010, 21:09
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Missed that one. Sure. I just wanted to know what you were presuming. As you said, he probably still needs to eat. If between more sunlight and more efficient photosynthesis an…
29 Jan 2010, 01:52
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Has there been any progress on some sort of amateur Festschrift for Gene Wolfe's 80th birthday? That discussion last year prompted me to write a narrative poem with connections to…
24 Jan 2010, 06:20
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That's pretty amazing, if it's confirmed. Is that with perfect efficiency? Gosh, are you seriously telling me to do the calculation? Half a square meter in sunbathing position, …
18 Jan 2010, 04:14
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--- On Tue, 1/12/10, Tom Hopkins <topkins at hotmail.co.uk> wrote: I agree completely. Wolfe said that astral projection made the possibility of Silkhorn's meeting Severian a "gu…
12 Jan 2010, 18:06
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The appendix to _Claw_ says "I am certain the word [horses] is not strictly correct." Usually "not strictly correct" means "but close"--otherwise there's no need for "strictly". (…
12 Jan 2010, 04:52
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I don't think Wolfe is trying to give a consistent picture of not knowing anything other than what's in Severian's manuscript. For one thing, how did he learn the language? For a…
12 Jan 2010, 04:46
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... All the ones I saw showed him wearing a shirt, or maybe had some equally blatant inaccuracy. If we're going to do that again, I'll just watch, since I don't see many movies a…
25 Dec 2009, 15:15
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I know he shaves, but I forget where it says he's clean- shaven. 7) Severian and Master Gurloes should be wearing masks. I thought about posting a comment on the video: "Here's w…
24 Dec 2009, 19:09
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I'd settle for uniformity. But no doubt you are large, you contain multitudes of Brunians. Jerry Friedman…
19 Dec 2009, 04:40
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... When you write "translated", do you mean "transferred"? "Employment" is "enfolding"? "Personal" is "having to do with masks"? I must say I find your writing less comprehensi…
19 Dec 2009, 04:02
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--- On Sun, 11/22/09, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote: Thanks for the kind words! ... I hadn't thought that it meant the technology came from the stars--an int…
23 Nov 2009, 06:05
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--- On Sat, 11/21/09, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: ... He's not? I must have missed something. I'm not so sure. Thecla says at the end of Ch. XII, "It [the revolu…
22 Nov 2009, 05:56
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--- On Sat, 11/21/09, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: ... More like alien-body syndrome, as her mouth and both her hands attack her, not just her right hand. But I agr…
21 Nov 2009, 19:32
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I can't argue with your new formulation, especially after you gave the examples I requested. On the other hand, it's easy to think of ancient cultivated plants that have flowers w…
04 Nov 2009, 06:16
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Then would you mind elaborating on those reasons? An example of such a plant would be helpful. I'll give an example of why I doubt it: all willows are dioecious, and very few hav…
04 Nov 2009, 00:24
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Do you have any basis for that extremely strange claim about dioecious plants? Is there even a single example? Jerry Friedman…
04 Nov 2009, 00:15
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I'll start by recommending Richard Cowper's trilogy /The White Bird of Kinship/, both for Zac's thesis and as something I liked. (I can be a little sentimental at times, though.)…
22 Sep 2009, 18:29
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I'm sorry I caused you to say that. I would defend my use of "stereotypes", but after your clarification, it seems pointless. ... Speaking of stereotypes, I thought, "Summer rea…
22 Sep 2009, 14:44
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It's been a long time, but I have the impression the narrator's faith was shaken, not stirred. Do the priests or monks in "The Nine Billion Names of God" count? You've got some p…
22 Sep 2009, 05:34
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What I was thinking of as crazy was taking on a large work and giving yourself the extra task of putting it into good English, instead of just reading something that interests you.…
05 Aug 2009, 17:06
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Si tu m'avais pos? la question, je t'aurais dit que c'est compl?tement fou. Mais tu te connais — toi-m?me, et moi je ne te connais pas. (Lucky for you my French isn't good enough…
05 Aug 2009, 13:49
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--- On Fri, 7/31/09, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote: ... And some adverbs don't end in -ly. But /The Best of Gene Wolfe/ is on limited preview at Google Books. Wi…
31 Jul 2009, 16:25
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To me, split infinitives are sometimes the most natural word order, with no special elegance or flash. That would be too bad. This is called "tmesis". I thought you could only d…
31 Jul 2009, 13:26
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Interesting. I agree that you usually shouldn't put a lot of words between an auxiliary verb and a main verb, or between "to" and an infinitive. (By the way, I'm told that Head-d…
31 Jul 2009, 00:24
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--- On Wed, 7/29/09, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: Jerry: > >>> Speaking of pet peeves, You didn't malign him--that article did. I missed the modernism part. I don't …
31 Jul 2009, 00:20
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... You put that clearly. However, though many people have been taught that (including me), I'd like to see some evidence for it. When the rule against split infinitives was fir…
29 Jul 2009, 17:22
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