{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/129",
    "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": 129,
    "subject": "Tracking mud",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-08-04T21:23:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-08-04T21:23:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0003-0200@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-08-04T21:23:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking mud",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #0311931 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#\n\nalga,\n\nBy \"Pamiguka\" as gophers, I believe you are thinking of \"Pummanga\"\nthe burrowing animal who is only seen or referred to as dead.  The\nPamigaka don't live underground, they live in a brush lodge.  Their\ninterest in wisdom is another detail that makes me think of\nfoxes--and prairie dogs, while they might fit North American\neco-sense, aren't tundra animals.  (Actually, now I think the\nPamigaka are probably boars.  Another sacred animal, you know, like\nthe one that gets Adonis?)  But this is quibble kibble.\n\nMimmunka as a lynx, yes, I'm sure you are right on that one (though\nhis role is like that of He Who Laughs, aka hyena, in \"The Tale of\nthe Boy Called Frog\").  Ties into Agia's holdout weapon that she uses\nto scar Severian's cheek in Vodalus's presence--'member?\n\n(Hoo boy, I feel another essay erupting . . . \"Guardians of the\nThreshold\" . . . down, down!  Down, damn you!)\n\nNow then, no more looking back--on to directions you dictate!\n\nIn the middle.  This really does seem to be a naturalist's\nobservation: animals stick to the sides (hiding), humans go to the\nmiddle (increase visual range, increase visibility, avoid the\ndangerous animals lurking in the bushes).\n\nThe whole Min underground empire.  This is =very= interesting.  In\nterms of TBOTNS we have the mine at Saltus, Mount Typhon, Vodalus,\nthe averns, the dwarfish tallman riders of Ascia and Ceryx the\nNecromancer of URTH all at once.  (Plus, as you say, hints of Long\nSun--\"Min\" might very well be short for \"mineral.\"  Note the stone\nflowers Cutthroat sees underground are \"kluy,\" the name of his\nwolf-mother, \"Red Kluy\"; and that Marble/Rose ain't much different.)\n\n(I think the communion-like ration cubes are bullion.)\n\nPaul Duggan's analysis of the tallman riders as dwarfs standing on\nthe shoulders of blind giants is definitely on target here.  Mantru\n(what a Lindsayan name!) is a fat dwarf who wants to resurrect true\nman or at least be on hand when the humans return.  Vodalus as Doctor\nTalos.\n\nOne parallel that struck me in particular: the robot giant (later\nnamed \"Roller\"), who seizes hero, a journey to the head (in this\ncase, riding on top of Roller's head), food denied . . . this is very\nmuch like Severian's first encounter with Typhon.  First there are\nrobot giants; then there is big Typhon who grabs Sev and jumps into\nboat; they ride up into Mount Typhon's head; where Severian sees food\nbehind glass but cannot get at it (Tantalos motif).\n\nThose staffs you call Elric-like (good point, but I took them as\nLindsay-like, along with the weird bow weapons, the chair weapon, and\nthe endieve wands).  They are also like rod of aaron vs. pharoah's\nstaff, fwiw.  Like Lindsay's hero, Cutthroat leaves these weird weapons\nbehind at every stage.  (Of course it also reminds me of John\nCrowley's work in this vein, particularly BEASTS and ENGINE SUMMER,\nbut I know you haven't read these.)\n\n(Moorcock is so vehemently anti-Catholic/anti-Christian that I find it\nquite interesting how his work intersects with Wolfe and Crowley via\nwhat we might loosely term the Gnostic Vector.  Though in Moorcock's\ncase it is probably more Theosophical.  It's quite touching, in a\nway--you won't see Jack Vance doing that, for example, and ERB shied\naway from it as well.)\n\nI insist that the story is rather dream-like.  Unless you know of\nLapplanders who rig leather sails to ice-running catamarans and go\nsailing across snowpack!  (Sure, the =shaman= rides his leather-skin\ndrum through the sky . . . )  But yes, it seems to be the Planet of\nMoreau in one reading.  (Hey, are you gonna write up something for NYRSF?\nYou could even do it without mentioning Cordwainer Smith, I betcha!)\n\nI'd bet that Wolfe wrote this specifically for IN THE WAKE OF MAN\nbased upon that title, rather than just turning in something he had\nalready written.  With \"wake\" being used as trail of ship and\nfuneral, of course.  (The ear to ear \"birthmark\" of Cutthroat is not\nnecessarily a cut but more likely imho a rope burn.  Mark of Cain?\nCane of Mark?  Lucifer?  Tarot Card No. 12?  Well anywho, recollect\nhow they strangled ol' Apu Punchau just to keep him from leaving.)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}