Subject: (urth) Averns averted

From: Jonathan Laidlow <laidlojm at hhs.bham.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:39:12 +0000

Well thank god we don't have to meet on the sanguinary field Roy!!

And apologies for taking Robert B's name in 'vein' - I am not 
Quetzal. That should be 'vane'.....

Just a quick note before the long weekend here in the UK.

I appreciate your description of the 'tapestry' of Urth, but I'd 
still argue that some details are more pertinent than others - the 
angel references, for example, are much more important than android 
classification. It may well be that Wolfe only had one kind of 
android in mind while writing BotNS and thought of another when 
writing 'Urth'. We'll never know. But surely it is far more important 
that Jonas' is an android who became human, than that he is an 
android/former spacesuit?

And all the things you mention are of great importance ('Boatman I & 
II, angels, Holy Katharine, the mandragora, cabalism, floriography') 
but they all contribute towards a greater narrative purpose. And its 
this level I like to work at when I'm reading - to follow your 
metaphor: I want to see how the individual parts of the tapestry tell 
the story.

Jonathan
Visit Ultan's Library - A Gene Wolfe web resource
http://members.tripod.co.uk/laidlow/index.htm
Jonathan Laidlow
University of Birmingham, UK

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