Subject: (urth) 7-11

From: Alice Turner <al at ny.playboy.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 17:19:11 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Sargent Rock, sir,

No, I don't think Cutthroat is anything like a Christ figure. I think he is
just what  we've been trying to define: a human being. Everyman. Or a
pilgrim, if you like. Human beings too (or so you think if you are Catholic,
or any other kind of Christian) die into a new life. But I think we're
really loping along the same moose trail. And I think you're also right not
to count this as a science fiction story; it uses the trappings, but it
reaches way back almost to the old moralities (technical term for the
allegorical religious plays that followed the medieval mystery plays in
European religious drama). Of course, a lot of Victorian children's fantasy
was sort of structured this way too (Kingsley, Macdonald), and mantis is
right about Lindsay, too, though that is so skewed that it's hard to say
just what it's about.

I like, too, the way he's also done a North American animal fable that's NOT
a Coyote tale and doesn't have a bit of that wise-old-Injun tongue-in-cheek
drollery that can get so tiresome.

And if I work for Playboy, do you have a PROBLEM with that, Sarge?

-alga-