{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1619", "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": 1619, "subject": "Earth to Urth Pt 3: Addenda", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-05-06T20:35:33+00:00", "last": "1999-05-07T09:25:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigelprice1 at compuserve.com" }, "date": "1999-05-06T20:35:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Earth to Urth Pt 3: Addenda", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "#Addendum 1\n\nMeant to mention, in connection with Wolfe's use of Dickens and his\nimitation of Dickens' realism, the interesting story \"Our Neighbour by\nDavid Copperfield\", which is included in \"Endangered Species\".\n\nFirst published in 1978, the story is an example of Wolfe explicitly\npractising a Dickensian pastiche. I wonder whether we should regard this\nshort piece as a sketch for certain aspects of the larger canvas on which\nWolfe was beginning to paint in the late Seventies, namely The Book of the\nNew Sun?\n\n#Addendum 2\n\nAlso meant to mention the thematic connection between the free board and\nlodging provided for the young couple in \"Kevin Malone\" with the titular\nfree board and lodging provided in \"Free Live Free\". Any one else agree\nthat the latter is also, in some perverse and deeply fascinating Lupine\nway, an allegory of Grace?\n\n#Addendum 3\n\nWho was it who wrote that brilliant essay on the list recently in which\nthey explained Wolfe's use of masks, and how, as a Catholic, Wolfe would\nregard God as able to use all sorts of imperfect images and agents as\nsymbols of his power and love? It was very good, and I must lok it up\nagain... \n\n(After a brief search: my poor memory - more Latro than Severian - tends to\nconflate and distort list messages and essays over time, but I think that I\nwas recalling excellent postings from Nicholas Gevers and Alex Groce. \nThank you, gentleman - and everyone else who joined in - a fascinating\ndiscussion. Well, I liked it, anyway!)\n\nMy suspicion is that that is what is probably happening in \"The Eye Flash\nMiracles\", as so well detailed in William H. Ansley's recent posts. The\nreferences to \"The Wizard of Oz\" seem to act as an imperfect symbollic\nvocabulary through which Little Tib perceives something of the divine and\nthe \"spiritual\" battle taking place around him. Presumably the images come\nfrom \"The Wizard of Oz\" books either because Little Tib had read the books\nor had them read to him, so that the images were latent in his memory, or\nbecause the images partake of some sort of archetypal symbolic system\nuniversally accessible to children.\n\nIt's late, what am I talking about?\n\nNigel Price\nMinety, Wiltshire\n\n\"Carry On Torturer\": Barbara Windsor IS Thecla!" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it" }, "date": "1999-05-07T07:48:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Earth to Urth Pt 3: Addenda", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nigel Price wrote:\nAlso meant to mention the thematic connection between the free board and\nlodging provided for the young couple in \"Kevin Malone\" with the titular\nfree board and lodging provided in \"Free Live Free\". Any one else agree\nthat the latter is also, in some perverse and deeply fascinating Lupine\nway, an allegory of Grace?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, maybe that's the only way to understand it... the characters\nblunder around senselessly for most of the novel so that even Free himself\ngets infuriated, and at the end are given a second chance anyway. But it's\na pretty iffy notion of salvation... a second chance to the same things all\nover again, or maybe not. It's as if grace should lead one into doing\nworks... isn't that almost what you were saying before?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Carry On Torturer\": Barbara Windsor IS Thecla!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, I'm sorry, that's going too far. That leaves Joan Sims for Dorcas and\nKenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques to play Dr Talos and Jolenta (\"Ohhhh,\nmaaytron!\")\n\ncorncrake" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-05-07T09:25:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Earth to Urth Pt 3: Addenda", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:48 1999-05-07 +0200, Peter Stephenson wrote:\nNigel Price wrote:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": ".." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Carry On Torturer\": Barbara Windsor IS Thecla!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, I'm sorry, that's going too far. That leaves Joan Sims for Dorcas and" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Joan Sims couldn't be Dorcas, she's old enough to be his\n - oh, right." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques to play Dr Talos and Jolenta (\"Ohhhh,\nmaaytron!\")" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, Barbara Windsor would have to be Jolenta. Hattie Jacques would be\nthe leader of the Pelerines, and Kenneth Williams the Autarch.\n\nI guessed who Severian would be straight away (which raises very\ninteresting questions about social environment and analogical\nreasoning :-) but I didn't think this would fly without a role\nfor Sid James. Unfortunately for my mental health, I have just\nworked it out ... \"*magic* mirrors, that's right - this way ...\"\n\nSBear.\n\n- Carry On Torturer: Kenneth Connor IS Jonas!\n\nStop!\n\n- Charles Hawtrey IS Hethor!\n\nStop, stop! Aaagh!" } ] } ] }