{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1063", "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": 1063, "subject": "More on Borges and Wolfe's literary bullying", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-08-26T08:24:19+00:00", "last": "1998-08-29T10:50:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "1998-08-26T08:24:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) More on Borges and Wolfe's literary bullying", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: CRCulver at aol.com\nPeace includes a great deal of Jorge Luis Borges' influence, and seeing it\nhere can illuminate how it was later used in the Book of the New Sun.\nOne Borgian influence I think is particularly strong is the labyrithine\nsymbolism of Weer's house (which I'm assuming is part of his postmortem\nimagination and doesn't actually exist)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read PEACE yet, but Borges seems to permeate everything that\nWolfe writes, moreso I think even than his other big influences\n(Kipling, Dickens, Jack Vance). Seek out a copy of THE BOOK OF\nIMAGINARY BEINGS and read the piece about the inhabitants of the\nspecula and the Yellow Emperor and tell me that this isn't essentially\na precis of the Book of the New Sun. Interestingly enough, Wolfe\ncalls the book \"second-rate Borges\" and it is, though it's got some\ndazzling parts. I believe there are two versions in English. I have\nthe one translated by the controversial Norman Thomas diGiovanni, who\ndespite working closely with Borges has come under a lot of criticism\nrecently for making questionable editorial changes. After seeing a\nphoto of him, I even found myself thinking that he looked a bit like\nWolfe's description of Cyby, Ultan's apprentice which might make the\nBorges/Ultan match even tighter.\n\nOne thing I've been thinking about a lot in the midst of my\nBorges/Wolfe-reading phase is that when I read Borges, I feel smart.\nWhen I read Wolfe, I often feel stupid, and only feel smart when I've\n\"solved\" (in the Vironese sense?) one of his seemingly locked rooms. \n\nWhich brings us to..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: m.driussi at genie.com\nRe: \"The Books in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN,\" yes, that is an important\npiece (collected in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING, published by NESFA, and\nrather hard to find), but to my mind it leads to an interesting new\ntopic (or rehash) on Wolfe and his readers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have a copy. In a better world CASTLE OF THE OTTER would be\nreworked to include this essential essay. To make room, I would ditch\nthe endless pages of good reviews that Wolfe includes in OTTER. I've\nnever understood their inclusion in the first place, it's almost as\nif, at the time of writing he was still somewhat unsure of his own\ntalent and needed a bunch of good reviews all in one place to convince\nthat he was indeed.\n\nThere's at least one other really great piece in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING,\na short poem about a British gunnery officer contemplating Flash\nGordon and Buck Rogers. I should type it in, since I doubt anyone\nwill go and sell copies of obscure Wofle poems found on mailing\nlists." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is a similar tidbit in CASTLE OF THE OTTER, where Wolfe starts\nto sketch the connections linking Dorcas to Severian by way of the\ncloisonne shop she worked in and the enameled pictures within the\nholy book he fetched for Thecla--then Wolfe stops in order to leave\nthe task for you to do." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I recall the incredulity that I felt when I first read that, the sense\nthat if I had missed that, then I must be missing a great deal more.\nAnd yet, when I feel as though I've made such connections myself, they\nreally do seem obvious, e.g. our recent discussion about Jonas as\nPinnochio/The Steadfast Tin Soldier. I'm convinced that we are\nessentially correct in this assessment and insofar as it seems\n\"obvious\" in retrospect, it also suggests many more questions.\n\nAnother passage in OTTER presents his summary of the original\nnovella-sized version of what turned into BOTNS. He sets up the\nsituation, outlines the various conflicts and then announces that he\nhas a solution, but that again, he'll leave that as an exercise for\nthe reader; however, the clues are not (IMHO) enough to solve the\nproblem that he presents. It's maddening and again, leaves me feeling\nlike an idiot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because it isn't nice to tell the Reader that she is stupid for\nhaving missed something \"so obvious\" when it wasn't really \"obvious\"\nat all. And it isn't nice to invite people to interpret Rorschach\nink blots, extolling them to elaborate further and further, if your\ngoal (perhaps secret) is to trick and humiliate the participants by\nrevealing what the inkblots \"really are.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here Alan Moore's mantra of \"Everything means something, but not\neverything means much\" (wrt WATCHMEN, but I apply it generally to\nliterature \"of this sort\" i.e. multilayered, ambiguous, full of\nstrange clues, seemingly unrelated story tangents and unlikely cross\nreferences) seems appropriate. I think Wolfe does a good job of not\nletting this stuff get in the way of his story even though one's\nappreciation of what actually constitutes \"the story\" deepens as one\nsees the grand design revealed.\n\nD" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-08-29T10:50:29+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) More on Borges and Wolfe's literary bullying", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan Parmenter wrote:\n\n\nThe BoIB is not an example of Borges in his prime. Because he was blind by the\ntime of its writing (like Ultan) he was forced to write it with an assistant\nwho, IMHO, added too much to it. However, the book is wonderful as a non-\nfiction device. Recently, I was playing a computer game with a animal in it\ncalled \"Kalja.\" One glance at the BoIB entry told me all I needed.\n\nAnd Dan continued:\n\n\nI imagine that is because Borges writes his stories in third-person\nomniscient, and so the reader is told almost everything. Wolfe, OTOH, tends to\nuse first-person a lot, and the narrator doesn't always know what is happening\n(like Severian in most of the UotNS).\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] } ] }