Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v024.n016

From: Alice Turner <akt at ibm.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:21:13 +0000

William,

I think you've done a great job, and that you should polish it up and
publish it somewhere. About the wings: This is a peculiar thing that Wolfe
does sometimes---look at the very end of "Tracking Song." Through it makes
me squirm, I think that he really is invoking angels in both places. (I
don't mind when they're like Tzadkiel, now why is that?) Or, to put it
another way, Oz = Sugarland = The Big Rock Candy Mountain = The Great Good
Place = Heaven. They certainly aren't the Gump's palm-frond wings! Though I
feel cheered at the suggestion!

This suggests that Little Tib is not long for this world, and I feel that
this is true. Your argument against this view is that Nitty is a real
person. Yes, but he is a sort of angel too, and my own feeling is that both
of them will be beyond the rainbow soon. And remember that the Shaggy Man
and Dorothy and Betsy and Trot and a few other earth people do live in Oz,
probably forever, since one is immortal there. I don't think Baum was
necessarily a Christian, but Wolfe is, and the conclusion is obvious.

Gosh, if I thought I had a chance of going to Oz when I died, I'd try to be
a better person....

-alga

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