Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v021.n005

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:45:48 +0000

>
>From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kmaroney at crossover.com>

>At 07:46 PM 10/29/98 -0500, alga quoted Julian Jaynes:
>>"The characters of the Iliad do not sit down and think out what to do.
they
>>have no conscious minds such as we say we have, and certainly no
>>introspections."
>
>By complete coincidence, I just happened to be reading part of _The Iliad_
>only a couple of weeks back--I'd never read it before; quite
>interesting--and I can say that this is, as a categorical statement, false.
>The death of Hector provides a clear example of introspection: (From Samuel
>Butler's translation, Book XXII)

[snip]

Oh, I agree, and could easily find other examples, even from Gilgamesh. (Why
are you reading Butler, btw, did you download it? There are some splendid
more modern translations. Did you know that Butler, and Graves after him,
was convinced that The Odyssey was written by a woman?)  But there is a
certain very general argument that could be sustained or at least argued
over in the Jaynes premise. I'll say again that I believe that Wolfe is at
his best when dealing with rather flat "archaic" figures, that in my own
opinion he is less successful at the nuanced 3-dimensional "modern" figure.

-alga

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 10:49:55 +0000

At 08:45 AM 11/3/98 -0500, alga wrote:
>was convinced that The Odyssey was written by a woman?)  

The Butler was available online. I actually can't remember what translation
I was reading when I first encountered this scene; I read it in WH Auden's
_The Greek Classics_ (Viking Portable Library). 

>But there is a
>over in the Jaynes premise. 

I certainly understand; but Jaynes was making an absolute categorical
statement, and like any absolute categorical statement, a single
counterexample damages it. (Harold Bloom seems to make a similarly broad
and indefensible statement in his newest book on Shakespeare.)

>I'll say again that I believe that Wolfe is at

Interesting observation, and one that I simultaneously find quite correct
and want to argue with. Alden Weir is a brilliant 3-dimensional figure, but
other than that, the characters in his best stories do tend to be viewed at
a remove. 

Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html

---

From: Alex David Groce <adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 12:57:26 +0000

> other than that, the characters in his best stories do tend to be viewed at

	Perhaps a better way to put it would be that a lot of Wolfe's best
characters have a very different psychology than you generally find in modern
literature--Severian comes to mind, of course, but Latro fits the bill as well.
I don't think Severian is so much "flat" as extended in a different
manner--where a modern character has depth, Severian does indeed seem flat.
	However, Severian's memory and ability to tune in to what I guess I
would call a sacramental view of reality replaces this; he does not agonize
over decisions because he is doing something else.  Latro works the same way
(his lack of memory serving the same kind of function as Sev's abundance
thereof).
	Weer is, to my mind, the most complex of Wolfe's characters--with both
the psychological depth of a "modern man" and the labyrinthine memory of a
Severian (Weer's being, presumably, less "true" but equally involved.)  I'd say
Weer's closest parallel is the narrator in Remembrance of Things
Past--completely different kinds of books, with very different concerns, but a
similar unique kind of character.
	Of course, I'd say that it's more that Wolfe emphasizes certain kinds
of psychology that aren't prevalent in modern literature (or recognized by us
moderns in general, although still extant) than that he can't handle the kinds
usually seen--I think Weer's proof of that.
	Silk I see as more "modern" than Severian, but also akin to Myshkin or
(what I thought of when I started the book) Aloysha in The Brothers
Karamazov...   An Aloysha, a Father Brown, a "little Christ", and a bit of
Moses (so is Auk Aaron?).  Hey, that's actually a nice point.  Moses never got
to the promised land either!  The book is "Exodus," after all.  Of course, Blue
& Green don't seem to be the land of milk and honey, but then the Israelites
were being given the one nation in the region without oil supplies.  So, if
Silk is Moses-like, what's his disobedience that prevents arrival in the
promised land?  Or is this an intentional contrast, where it's his loyalty (to
Hy) that prevents it, making him both Moses-like and Christic in self-sacrifice
for (a less than Godlike but still touching) love?
-- 
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." - John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)
Senior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)
'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President
608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce