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No, I don't recall that anyone has. Great find! The two "letters" might be summed up as pointing the moral that "virtue is its own reward" (as regards the original question addres…
28 Oct 2002, 08:10
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I must be getting senile, because I just re-read the LS series this autumn and completely missed those two "facts". Could you tell me where in the texts they might be found? I won…
27 Oct 2002, 07:27
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Correction: it is only Chenille who can't read. Sorry about that. -Roy…
25 Oct 2002, 08:51
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Crush writes: That's not how I read it. It's on the page before that "friend" quote. (279, paper) "He'd got it specially made for me, or anyhow the picture put on." The "he" is Cr…
25 Oct 2002, 07:34
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I found the definitive answer, and the friend _is_ Auk. It's in chapter 5 of LAKE (111, paper), right after Auk met Silk and Chenille in the arbor at Sun Street: "Auk was seated n…
24 Oct 2002, 20:50
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Just a few observations. My page numbers are for the Berkley paperback. Den was about 6-and-a-half (May to December) years old that Christmas. (17) You forgot the famous egg! (10…
24 Oct 2002, 19:10
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Granted. But if she had been looking at three sailors who were obviously robots (whether the slender type in URTH or those that looked like Sidero), then her statement that they ar…
24 Oct 2002, 05:41
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Crush asked: Joe gave the correct answer for the first question. I don't think there is an answer to the third. Even though Silk knows, intellectually, that Marble is a machine, h…
24 Oct 2002, 05:01
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And in another post mantis wrote (of Santa): [dismissing my argument for who switched the gifts] Now, we both know that the "heavy, square package with its ribbons and trimmings …
23 Oct 2002, 07:54
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What, then, is the relevance of Arabella's magazine article to Weer? I mean, most, if not all, of the imbedded stories in PEACE, ghostly or not, can be shown to have some bearing o…
22 Oct 2002, 07:58
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Whoa, now! Since when did Santa Claus get to be a ghost?! I posted about the switch two years ago. Teenage Den was right about who switched the gifts--it was his grandfather, for …
22 Oct 2002, 05:12
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I think she is pulling his leg, just as she clearly was about the faces on the Chinese teapot. It's the reverse of the country bumpkin in the big city; the girl from the country is…
21 Oct 2002, 22:06
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Sheesh. Sorry, mantis. I sent my reply to David DiGiacomo's post on the same mail send/receive session that I received your reply to the same post. The similarities are uncanny. -…
21 Oct 2002, 05:40
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Remember the infamous "leather-covered couch"? Weer wondered ". . .if Mr. Macafee had ever been able to explain to himself why my aunt, who had been impossible of access before her…
21 Oct 2002, 05:17
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He doesn't mention any siblings, but if he did have any that just increases the likelihood of his having closer, by blood, relatives to whom he might bequeath his business. Stockho…
20 Oct 2002, 00:00
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mantis writes: Those "cousins" he mentioned would have been his own age. We know almost nothing about Smart's life beyond the few autobiographical details he divulges in the cour…
19 Oct 2002, 07:17
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Adam wrote: [snip] Perhaps; it's just that I have a hard time believing that a man would willingly leave his estate to someone he wouldn't even speak to. I wouldn't allow it to ha…
18 Oct 2002, 21:46
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That "most famous of all his portraits" is presumably the one he posed for in 1810, also painted by Jacques Louis David, court painter to the Emperor of the French. It shows him wi…
16 Oct 2002, 16:47
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So what is the joke? We know that Wolfe has a warped sense of humor, and that Jonas is telling the joke. It only dawned on me today that the woman's last line is also the punch lin…
16 Oct 2002, 16:47
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alga asks: No, he doesn't. At least there is no mention of one in the text. Why? -Roy…
16 Oct 2002, 03:45
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mantis writes: That sort of thing has happened to me far too often on this list; someone beating me to the punch, but "delightful" is not the word I would choose to describe my re…
15 Oct 2002, 05:57
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The plant existed before Weer went to work there, so whether or not he was the longest-tenured employee, after Smart, I couldn't say. But in any event, succession to ownership of a…
14 Oct 2002, 05:31
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We know even less about Julius Smart than we know about Weer, for all his being a "symbolic" figure and "the central character of this book". I want to address two facts related to…
14 Oct 2002, 04:37
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I wrote, twice no less: That should have been "booger-picking", alas. My mistake. Sheesh. -Roy…
10 Oct 2002, 04:32
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What I think you should read that passage again. It's in the last chapter of CALDE (pp. 335-36 of the paperback), at the point where Silk is being brought up from the cellar of Bl…
10 Oct 2002, 02:29
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Daniel Goss wrote a very thoughtful post; I look forward to more! I will bravely duck the issue of the logical paradox that gave rise to Gnosticism, to pursue the Genesis parallel…
09 Oct 2002, 20:03
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Crush writes: I meant to say something about that parenthetical bit above the last time you brought it up. Where is the evidence that Chenille is "genetically engineered"? The lis…
07 Oct 2002, 21:53
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Jerry Friedman quotes and writes: Marble ending up on Blue was a fluke; as Mucor's guardian she was just in the right place at the right time, and being the calde's friend didn't …
07 Oct 2002, 18:49
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Rostrum quoted me and writes: What I was getting at is the parallel between Man as creator of sentient beings (in Wolfe's work) and God as creator of Man (in _Genesis_). Yes, and…
07 Oct 2002, 18:01
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involves I know that the subject of how chems reproduce was touched upon recently, but having just reread the series I can give a little more specific information. Some of the par…
06 Oct 2002, 20:35
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What follows was prepared yesterday; I didn't post it then because I thought I would leave well enough alone, that and wait to see if there would be any further response to my "Bio…
06 Oct 2002, 18:26
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And the textual evidence for this is . . . nonexistent. The following quote happens to address both Blattid's "repentance" issue and mantis's query. The context is the point in PE…
05 Oct 2002, 18:41
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Unfortunately, I must revisit the question of bias by bios against chems. I won't repeat what I've posted before, but bear it in mind; the subject is germane. As I wrote in my ori…
05 Oct 2002, 05:59
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Stone Ox writes: I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia gets to go to heaven? She didn't strike me as even a nice person, much less as worthy of eternal rewa…
04 Oct 2002, 19:27
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Do EXODUS, 232 The only clue I'm aware of that may pertain is a left-handed one, and may just be a minor mistake by Wolfe. It's in chapter 4 of CALDE, where Rose-in-Marble is tel…
26 Sep 2002, 23:14
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Crush writes: No, I don't think there is general agreement on that point. On 9/6/02 mantis wrote: ------------------------ Jonas steps into the mirrors after speaking of being re…
26 Sep 2002, 19:42
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The answer to both of the first two questions is: yes, for the obvious lack of "compatible sexual interface devices", but it is the third question, I believe, that most concerns yo…
26 Sep 2002, 06:36
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Jerry Friedman quoting mantis: I agree completely with Jerry and have said so before. Jonas loathed his bio replacement parts. When he said he would come back for Jolenta when he …
25 Sep 2002, 19:13
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Charles Reed writes: [snip] Thus, I don't know that the statement in OBW can be construed as "unambiguous"--Horn and Nettle were the source for both sets of data, after all. Tha…
24 Sep 2002, 19:36
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mantis writes: Sorry to be confusing. I brought it up because that's the way the text has it. Marble made the second trip (on the same day as the first, iirc) for two reasons; to …
24 Sep 2002, 16:50
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No, no. Your reading of the text is correct; she did not see the trunk on a visit 184 years ago. As I said in the second paragraph: "But both trips to the attic came after Rose's d…
24 Sep 2002, 04:16
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Having just completed a slow rereading of the LS series, there are some puzzles I can't seem to work out. Those bored with nitty-gritty plot details may want to skip it. This puzz…
23 Sep 2002, 21:57
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Ian writes: Yes, and that's all very well when the fusion chamber remains intact; but when it is breached? When the plasma hits the fan, so to speak, what then? Why was Dr. Crane,…
09 Sep 2002, 17:43
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Correct: "Five chains away, the blade of the azoth wrecked a fusion generator, and the soldier whose heart it had been died." (LS3, 9) But, but . . . that's just another good…
08 Sep 2002, 21:37
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Yes. Silk was no weakling -- he threw Mamelta over his shoulder and ran with her, bad ankle and all, after Lemur was killed. Yet when Marble/Rose was telling him about Blood's birt…
06 Sep 2002, 23:37
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Yes, Jonas's nature has been discussed before, and I'm still waiting for an answer to my question of just what the hell he thought he was going to do with Jolenta, even if she was …
06 Sep 2002, 08:10
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Blattid President and Founder, The books may be fresher in my mind since I am currently re-reading them, and have paid particular attention to the chems. Time and again Wolfe port…
06 Sep 2002, 06:24
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Dan'l wrote: [snip] Why would any robot designer in their right mind even _consider_ building one hardwired (or programmed) to be subject to the equivalent vagaries of human emot…
04 Sep 2002, 01:15
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That definition fits Marble perfectly! I don't think so. Marble was not programmed on Urth to be a sibyl. I don't know how/why she became a sibyl, but several decades back she was…
03 Sep 2002, 19:36
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The subject of chems having been brought up lately, I want to say a few things about them in general, some of which may bear on recent discussion. First is the silly anthropomorph…
03 Sep 2002, 05:26
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