{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1047", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1047, "subject": "Castleview", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-08-08T00:07:13+00:00", "last": "1998-08-10T11:04:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-08-08T00:07:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Castleview", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just finished CASTLEVIEW for the first time and thought I would offer my\npreliminary observations. After I do a second read, I'll probably post some\nlonger, more explicatory stuff--though by then I may have changed my mind\nabout some of what follows.\n\nDoc Dunstan's diary is stolen from the county museum by the six \"people\" in\nthe van from Minnesota. The diary contains coded information about the\nlocation of Excalibur (or possibly the Holy Grail). Jim Long deliberately\ncrashes his sedan into the van so he can appropriate the diary for Morgan\nViviane.\n\nMorgan Viviane and Liam Fee are one and the same.\n\nDitto for Lucie and G. Gordon Kitty.\n\nAnn Schindler and her daughter Mercedes may represent Merlin (they may also\nlive life backwards a la Merlin and thus remember the future).\n\nThe Giant Horseman/Greenman/Master of the Hunt\nrepresents--minimalistically--a combination of Odin/Christ/Cernunnos. \n\nKing Geimhreadh probably represents a combination of Joseph of\nArimathea/the Fisher King/a Frost Giant. He may also be Malory's King\nEvelake (who in some accounts is father to Morgan Le Fay). \n\nVon Madadh is both Mordred and Fenris (madadh = large dog [Celtic]; wolf\n[Gaelic]). He's also the half Celtic, half German Gene Wolfe.\n\nMorgan Viviane conflates a whole mess of figures from both Arthurian legend\nand various other mythologies. She's Morgan Le Fay and Viviane and the Lady\nof the Lake and Guinivere. She's also an oceanid and a merrow (an Irish\nmermaid). 'Mor' means sea in several Celtic languages.\n\nValse Triste is from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt? Not hardly. (Though it does\nprovide a clue as to who's stealing the Dunstan diary, while the true\nprovenance of the piece provides us with an early clue about the fate of\nWill Shields.) \n\n[Always nice to see Gene use classical music in his works. He does so in\n\"The Friendship Light\" and Alban Berg's Wozzeck is crucial to an\nunderstanding of \"In Looking Glass Castle.\" Anybody know of any more?]\n\nThe Isle of Glass = Glastonbury (the Saxon translation of Ynis Witrin,\n'Island of Glass'). Chapter 36's title, \"The Land of Apples,\" combines\nEdenic imagery with Arthurian--Avalon means \"Isle of Apples.\" Glastonbury,\nfounded by grail-bearer Joseph of Arimathea, is traditionally held to be\nthe site of Avalon.\n\nThe book as a whole seems based on the novels of Charles Williams--like\nC.S. Lewis, another Oxford don heavily into religious fiction. Anybody read\nWilliam's WAR IN HEAVEN? \n\nAll in all, I rather enjoyed CASTLEVIEW--though it is a bit confusing at\ntimes and I still have lots of questions. I'm hoping maybe some of you may\nhave the answers I seek and will join me later when I begin to post the\nlonger pieces. \n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "1998-08-10T11:04:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Castleview", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I originally thought the story must take place on Halloween, but it\nis most likely to be Samhain (7th November), the New Year and start of \nWinter or Geimhreadh (Gaelic). I suspect _The Golden Bough_ would be a \ngood reference for a death of the old king, a competition (?) for his \nwife and home, plus a replacement/scapegoat to allow the Summer King to \nsurvive and wait until his turn comes around at Beltaine. \n\nFor those as ignorant as me, the _Valse Triste_ was written as\naccompaniment to a scene where a dying woman dreams of a ball, and\nmistaking Death for her husband, starts to dance with him. \n\n| David Duffy. ,-_|\\\n| email: davidD at qimr.edu.au ph: INT+61+7+3362 0217 fax: +0101 / *\n| Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research \\_,-._/\n| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia v " } ] } ] }