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Oh. I don't own any of the Wolfe story collections yet, and I'd remembered that Castle of Days, for instance, had all the stories from Wolfe's Book of Days, so I imagined that the…
17 Dec 1998, 09:54
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This discussion of Wolfe's earlier stories makes me wonder, has anyone figured out the most efficient way to get all of Wolfe's short stories and novellas? -Rostrum…
15 Dec 1998, 15:30
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(Ah, this bit of my last post belonged here.) The first paragraph of Nightside identifies the enlightenment narrative as the way Silk "talked about it afterward" -- so that tells …
15 Dec 1998, 10:24
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Interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard to someone say that if the universe is a created thing, then it is "artificial" or "unnatural." Of course "clockwork" may just be Sil…
15 Dec 1998, 08:36
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The problem with this from a Roman Catholic sensibility is that the Church believes it has a tradition of interpreting the Bible with a better understanding of what Jesus meant tha…
03 Dec 1998, 10:56
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I haven't read Crossan, but I've read some fairly compelling critiques of his work which might interest you. N.T. Wright's _Jesus and the Victory of God_ argues that Crossan et. a…
03 Dec 1998, 10:18
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Alas! A very beautiful hypothesis slain by an ugly fact. Nigel really had me feeling like I'd missed the blindingly obvious for a minute there. Even so, the comparison is intere…
29 Nov 1998, 23:08
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Do I remember someone having pictures of those covers on the web? I don't think I've ever seen them, and I would like to. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe'…
24 Nov 1998, 13:45
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That whole website might be of interest to Wolfe fans. He has very little Wolfe stuff as yet, but he's got some wonderful pages about Borges, Eco, Pynchon, Joyce, Kafka, and Gabri…
06 Nov 1998, 08:49
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Editorially speaking, I think that what you're expressing is properly a criticism of Exodus, rather than a good reason to continue Silk's story in the Short Sun books. Unless Silk…
04 Nov 1998, 14:19
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I predict that if we see Silk at all in the Short Sun books, it will be as part of a Silk/Pas amalgram residing in Mainframe. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wol…
03 Nov 1998, 13:58
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The classic SF trope is getting hydrogen from electrolysis of water, so I imagine Prion is refering to water vapor in the air. "Humid weather today. Yum!" -- Hammerstone -Rostru…
02 Nov 1998, 08:49
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I guess I'm imagining that a male and female get together and start making the little chem and go into an different mode of consciousness, after which they couldn't really tell you…
02 Nov 1998, 08:43
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I don't know. Even I who reject a lot of the allegorical interpretations that get passed around on this list thought that the "flawed bride of Christ" stuff was as blatant as Silk…
02 Nov 1998, 08:39
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Perhaps the program for reproduction is not consciously accessible to the chems. Try asking a computer that runs an automobile factory how to make a combustion engine. A chem may…
30 Oct 1998, 16:07
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What about C.S. Lewis's "Out of the Silent Planet"? The main character is a philologist and a significant portion of the book is about language learning. Does that count as "ling…
30 Oct 1998, 14:49
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Have you read Chesterton's critique (I think it's in _The Everlasting Man_) of the assumption you can draw valid inferences about ancient peoples by observing modern peoples who ha…
30 Oct 1998, 10:58
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I assume that, just as Wolfe explained that /terminus est/ is not really Latin but a language as archaic to speakers of Severian's language as Latin is to English, just so the lang…
30 Oct 1998, 09:18
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[...] I'm missing something here. How exactly do you see Wolfe being influenced by Jaynes as opposed to the Iliad itself? Are you saying he gets the idea that theophonies might …
30 Oct 1998, 09:14
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There's a big difference between Wolfe telling us that he personally interprets the Outsider as a real "spiritual god" and the narrative forcing that conclusion upon us. One of th…
30 Oct 1998, 08:56
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Exactly. Following Mothman's hypothesis, one would expect Latro's desire to manifest as regular visits from Hestia urging him to search out his kindred and get home. Except that…
29 Oct 1998, 10:21
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Also, Wolfe just loves magic or otherwise nifty swords. Can we name them all? Terminus Est Silk's Azoth Silk's walking stick Latro's magic sword Weer's penknife (as Chesterton sa…
22 Oct 1998, 17:27
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Is it only in Christian tradition that Daniel 10 is interpreted as evidence of supernatural battles between good angels and evil angels? Daniel has a vision of an angelic being wh…
22 Oct 1998, 17:17
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I thought it amusing that in Stephen King's book _Salem's Lot_, the good almost seems to draw power parasitically from the evil. I seem to remember a scene where the good guys pou…
19 Oct 1998, 08:46
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That's one interpretation. Do you think it's possible that the leader is actually a dictator who uses the "Westwind" business as a means of social control? Why does he lead each …
16 Oct 1998, 15:06
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I didn't mean that as literally as you took it (although I was rewarded with a thoughtful and interesting response). I meant that many of Wolfe's themes involve the necessity of u…
16 Oct 1998, 13:19
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Memory. -Rostrum…
16 Oct 1998, 08:47
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I think the lit crit community says yes, no, yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, maybe, fish, power. I say listen to the author and other people's criticism if it interests you and if it…
15 Oct 1998, 15:42
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I was out of town during the discussion of this story in late September and just now have a chance to reply. I thought Mr. Borski's lists of hell and computer imagery interesting,…
15 Oct 1998, 15:22
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I love this sentence so much I think I'm going to print it out and sleep with it under my pillow. "Cargo cult exegesis"--bwahahahaha! To go further off-topic, anyone here read A…
15 Oct 1998, 09:52
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I've long suspected I have some sort of deficiency because I am utterly unmoved by these kinds of revelations. Vader is Luke's father? Leia is Luke's sister? Yawn. Let's see so…
12 Oct 1998, 08:39
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I guess this should go in the Whorl list, but I'll keep it here where people have been discussing it. Spoilers for the Long Sun books follow. You have to remember that Pas was ki…
07 Oct 1998, 09:08
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While I agree that that the payoff at the end was not as satisfying as I'd hoped (too abrupt: maybe I didn't understand everything, but I think Wolfe has a tendency to wimp out by …
23 Sep 1998, 10:45
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I also think it's Wolfe's funniest book. -Rostrum…
21 Sep 1998, 13:52
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I'm not sure I understand. Is it because backwards it would look like you are sucking the poison out of a man and bringing the dead back to life? But almost everything except two…
04 Sep 1998, 10:19
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The Dark Night Returns and V: For Vendetta are usually mentioned in the same breath as Watchmen (which means you've probably heard of them already too). Just an abreviation for "p…
04 Sep 1998, 08:33
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Absolutely not. That's like saying you could cut out a bunch of those repeated phrases in Ravel's Bolero. The fact that the long sections in the middle about all the conspiracies…
28 Aug 1998, 08:42
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Excellent catch! That's what I get for spinning after reading just once and without a copy of the book. It also means that, if it's a dream, it takes place after Bobby's death an…
27 Aug 1998, 09:52
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I don't know. It seems too obviously a reference to the ancient method of enhancing memory by creating an imaginary house or castle in which each room represents a time period or …
27 Aug 1998, 09:41
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Yep. I think FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM is the only novel I've ever read that deliberately bores the reader as a literary device. But when something finally happens near the end, it hit…
26 Aug 1998, 14:29
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[...] I was arguing more that Bobby's death seems to have been an important turning point. Isn't there an implication that it had something to do with Weer's parents leaving? Th…
26 Aug 1998, 13:58
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[...] [...] [...] While I must admit that I'm still enamored of my own "it's a Chinese pillow dream of a possible life" theory, I have to admit that your interpretation works pr…
26 Aug 1998, 09:33
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"Be mean, Gene! I'm a careless reader, and I must be punished!" As long as people are reading Wolfe consensually, what's the problem? Wheels within wheels. Read Eco's FOUCAULT'…
25 Aug 1998, 10:57
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For starters, I agree that Weer is not only 'dead,' but has been for a long time. Recapping evidence others have presented before: Eleanor Bold's hobby is planting trees on the gr…
25 Aug 1998, 10:34
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I've always thought "The Man Who Was Thursday" was a bit Wolfean (albeit less subtle than Wolfe) in it's attempts at deliberately misdirecting the reader, and perhaps also in the r…
05 Aug 1998, 08:16
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[...] HORARS seems to me to be more fundamentally yet another example of one of Wolfe's favorite themes, the narrator who doesn't know who or what he is, and who is ignorant of hi…
15 Jul 1998, 17:15
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On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, prion lots of really nifty background on the names Wolfe used for the gods of the Whorl, including: Hmmm. Typhon the many-headed. Since the whole point of T…
15 Jul 1998, 16:50
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I have to admit some confusion on that point. Wouldn't anyone judging the Autarch also have to know the words in order to recognize them? Shouldn't any such person be able to spe…
15 Jul 1998, 11:17
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Speaking of arks, I just recently looked up 'autarchy' wondering what the difference was between that and 'monarchy' and was surprised to learn that the original spelling is 'autar…
14 Jul 1998, 09:01
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When I first read the books, I assumed that as 'Whorl' was a neolgism describing a World that Whirls, 'Viron' was once short for environment, in the sense of "artificial environmen…
14 Jul 1998, 08:36
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