{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1360", "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": 1360, "subject": "Moby Wolfe [Digest urth.v022.n038]", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-02-05T09:07:47+00:00", "last": "1999-02-05T14:13:57+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "John Bishop", "address": "jbishop at blkbrd.zko.dec.com" }, "date": "1999-02-05T09:07:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Moby Wolfe [Digest urth.v022.n038]", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Cute, but no cigar:\n\no \"Call me Ishmael\" is a reference to the son of Abram and\n his concubine Hagar (search for \"Ishmael\" in \n http://www.tagnet.org/freebies/KJBible/01_GEN.HTM).\n His family splits off before the Jews become Jews.\n\n So \"Ishmael\" is not the narrator's name, but his method of:\n\n 1) denying the reader his real name, \n\n 2) claiming that real names are not the point, \n\n 3) saying he is a \"wanderer\" and cast out from his people and\n\n 4) telling the reader that what follows is going to be \n portentious and symbolic (biblical) rather than realistic\n and direct.\n\n Dan McCall, author and English professor, told me this\n some years ago; as the professor pointed out, any reader\n of the time would have instantly caught the reference.\n\n Of course, \"Severian\" is meant to make us think of \"severe\"\n but it's also his name.\n\no Quequeeg is probably not Andean; many of the whalers were\n Native Americans from New England (e.g. the \"Gay Head Indians\"\n who were in the news a few years ago when they had a run-in\n with Jackie Kennedy over land on Martha's Vineyard), others\n came from all over; but the makers of shrunken heads are the\n Jivaro [http://users1.ee.net/pmason/shrunk2.html], who are\n from Brazilian or Ecuadorian low-land forests. On the other\n hand, he may just have picked up the technique as a way of\n making money from other people's prejudices.\n\n Personally, given his tatoos, I suspect he's a Pacific \n Islander--Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan or Maori: the whalers\n were active in the Pacific and recruited anywhere they could\n get cheap, tough workers.\n\no And who would be Ahab?\n\n -John Bishop" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it" }, "date": "1999-02-05T14:13:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Moby Wolfe [Digest urth.v022.n038]", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "John Bishop wrote:\nCute, but no cigar:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just wanted to suggest the scenes were parallel. I'm certainly not\nimplying the books are parallel, and the subject line was just a\nthrowaway, there's certainly no overt connection between\nIshmael/Severian. Queequeg's poncho (`doormat') is referred to in\nsome detail by Ishmael, which puts him, or his associations, entirely\nin the right part of the world for me, anywhere in Ecuador would do as\nfar as I'm concerned. I'd have thought that was enough for one little\ncigar. I'm not asking for a Havana, and I'll go and smoke it outside\nif you like.\n\ncorncrake" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1999-02-05T10:51:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Moby Wolfe [Digest urth.v022.n038]", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Friday 5 February 1999 at 2:08 pm GMT,\nJohn Bishop wrote:\nQuequeeg is probably not Andean; many\nof the whalers were Native Americans from\nNew England (e.g. the \"Gay Head Indians\"\nwho were in the news a few years ago when\nthey had a run-in with Jackie Kennedy over\nland on Martha's Vineyard), others came\nfrom all over; but the makers of shrunken\nheads are the Jivaro\n[http://users1.ee.net/pmason/shrunk2.html],\nwho are from Brazilian or Ecuadorian low-\nland forests. On the other hand, he may just\nhave picked up the technique as a way of\nmaking money from other people's prejudices.\n\nPersonally, given his tatoos, I suspect he's a\nPacific Islander--Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan\nor Maori: the whalers were active in the Pacific\nand recruited anywhere they could get cheap,\ntough workers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As it happens, the Maori also preserved trophy\nheads (part of the object was to preserve the\nvictim's tattoos), although I don't belive that they\nshrunk them. It certainly is the Jivaro who are\nbest known for the practice and who made the\nstereotypical shrunken heads. I don't know\nwhether the Samoans, who were notoriously\nbelligerent, had a similar tradition.\n\nLike Rostrum, I noticed that Severian was\nsharing a bed with a stranger whom he at\nfirst finds threatening but later grew to trust\n(and also like Rostrum, I didn't get any further\ncorrespondences at the time). Of course,\nunlike Ishmael, Severian eventually finds\nhimself fighting his former companion.\nThough it is, interestingly, a water-borne\nassault that results in a fight with dreamlike\nelements. Perhaps Baldanders--who disap-\npears into Lake Diuturna and eventually comes\nto inhabit the ocean--actually takes on the\nwhale's role in Severian's life for a time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "o And who would be Ahab?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maybe Severian is Ahab as well as Ishmael--\nbut Severian, unlike Ahab, achieves redemption.\n\nMark Millman" } ] } ] }