{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1720", "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": 1720, "subject": "de Sade, Plato, and Jack the Ripper.....", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1999-07-22T11:43:06+00:00", "last": "1999-07-22T13:13:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jonathan Laidlow", "address": "laidlojm at hhs.bham.ac.uk" }, "date": "1999-07-22T11:43:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) de Sade, Plato, and Jack the Ripper.....", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "'With its references to DeSade, Plato and Jack the Ripper, this is a \nfully realized culture, utterly strange and utterly believeable, as \nmight be expected from the author of 'The Fifth Head of Cerberus''\n- - Algys Budrys, review of 'Shadow of the Torturer', The Magazine of \nFantasy and Science Fiction vol.58 no. 5 May 1980.\n\nAs I became bored of de Sade (!), am ignorant of Plato, and just \nplain confused by Ripperology, where are these references? Wouldn't \nit be fun if we teased them out?\n\nJonathan\nVisit Ultan's Library - A Gene Wolfe web resource\nhttp://members.tripod.co.uk/laidlow/index.htm\nJonathan Laidlow\nUniversity of Birmingham, UK" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it" }, "date": "1999-07-22T11:49:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) de Sade, Plato, and Jack the Ripper.....", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Jonathan Laidlow\" wrote:\n'With its references to DeSade, Plato and Jack the Ripper, this is a \nfully realized culture, utterly strange and utterly believeable, as \nmight be expected from the author of 'The Fifth Head of Cerberus''\n- - Algys Budrys, review of 'Shadow of the Torturer', The Magazine of \nFantasy and Science Fiction vol.58 no. 5 May 1980.\n\nAs I became bored of de Sade (!), am ignorant of Plato, and just \nplain confused by Ripperology, where are these references? Wouldn't \nit be fun if we teased them out?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, it would, although maybe he's just saying Wolfe refers to anything and\neverything and has picked some extreme examples, like Polonius ends his\nlist of things the players in Hamlet can perform with `scene individable\nand poem unlimited', whatever that means. But it's fun to make dodgy\nhypotheses based on tenuous connections.\n\nPlato, I suppose, means the ideal republic of the Republic, with its\nphilosopher ruler, which isn't so far off what the autarch is (in practice,\nI mean, when we actually meet him --- pedants will want to wreck this by\nnoting that we don't in Shadow, apart from an appearance in the House Azure\nwhich isn't explained till later). You could probably make an argument\nthat the New Sun was the Form of the Good, but that would be a bit vague\neven for my taste. Nor does it seem particularly outr'e to suggest the\nCommonwealth is less than ideal. Was he thinking of cave dwellers, looking\nat the world in shadow? Or (I may well be doing Budrys a disservice) does\nPlato mean `some Greek guy with old-fashioned ideas about society'?\n\nAs for the others --- neither aristocratic debauchery and perversion, nor\nthe systematic murder of prostitutes are major themes in Wolfe, although I\nhesitate in case anyone has a piece of fan fiction ready. Here's my guess:\nboth de Sade and Jack the Ripper are generic references to a decadent (in\nWolfe's case `decayed' would seem more appropriate) world of aristocratic\n(i.e. exultant) vice --- we already know in `Shadow', for example, that\nThecla and her relatives are concubines.\n\nThere was a 1979 film, `Murder by Decree', in which Jack the Ripper turned\nout to be the Duke of Clarence, mad son of Victoria and Albert (there, I've\nspoilt it for you, sorry); the case was investigated by Sherlock Holmes\n(Christopher Plummer) and Dr Watson (James Mason). They managed to cram\nthe freemasons, and even werewolves if the quote below is anything to go by\n(though I can't remember that bit), into the story, too. `Oliver Stone\nwould love this plot' is a comment in the IMDB review (see\nhttp://us.imdb.com/Title?0079592). Coming a year or so before Shadow of\nthe Torturer, with a strange city (they always do that to Victorian London,\nbut I suppose Dickens got there first), and a proto-Wolfean mixing of\nthemes, it might have been enough to suggest to Budrys that `Shadow' had\nJack-the-Ripper connotations.\n\n Holmes: We've unmasked madmen, Watson, wielding sceptres. Reason run\n riot. Justice howling at the moon.\n\ncorncrake" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex Groce", "address": "agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-07-22T12:45:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) de Sade, Plato, and Jack the Ripper.....", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Peter Stephenson wrote:\nYes, it would, although maybe he's just saying Wolfe refers to anything and\neverything and has picked some extreme examples, like Polonius ends his\nlist of things the players in Hamlet can perform with `scene individable\nand poem unlimited', whatever that means. But it's fun to make dodgy\nhypotheses based on tenuous connections.\n\nPlato, I suppose, means the ideal republic of the Republic, with its\nphilosopher ruler, which isn't so far off what the autarch is (in practice,\nI mean, when we actually meet him --- pedants will want to wreck this by\nnoting that we don't in Shadow, apart from an appearance in the House Azure\nwhich isn't explained till later). You could probably make an argument\nthat the New Sun was the Form of the Good, but that would be a bit vague\neven for my taste. Nor does it seem particularly outr'e to suggest the\nCommonwealth is less than ideal. Was he thinking of cave dwellers, looking\nat the world in shadow? Or (I may well be doing Budrys a disservice) does\nPlato mean `some Greek guy with old-fashioned ideas about society'?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I think Plato is definitely the easy one of these to find. My\nguess would be Severian's \"We believe that we invent symbols\"\npassage--which I showed a friend as an example of Wolfe's writing, and he\nsaid \"Nice writing, but it's just Plato's old stuff about Ideals.\" Maybe\nnot exactly, but certainly related.\n\n Jack the Ripper and de Sade somehow seem more likely to be 5HC\nelements than in Shadow. . . Urth is more Byzantine decadent than\nVictorian London/Justine decadent. \n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "1999-07-22T13:13:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) de Sade, Plato, and Jack the Ripper.....", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re: the Budrys line in review of THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alex Groce wrote:\n I think Plato is definitely the easy one of these to find. My\nguess would be Severian's \"We believe that we invent symbols\"\npassage--which I showed a friend as an example of Wolfe's writing, and he\nsaid \"Nice writing, but it's just Plato's old stuff about Ideals.\" Maybe\nnot exactly, but certainly related." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd agree with that. Add details like Thecla's mention of \"agathodaemon.\"\nPerhaps all the Hellenic/Hellenistic terms, even the names of weapons, add\nto a \"Greek-ness\" which then led Budrys to \"Plato.\"\n\nFor traces of de Sade, I'd say offhand: \"Algedonic\" and any issues of\nalgophilia among the torturers, as discussed by Severian (although I'm not\nsure how much of this is done in SHADOW itself).\n\nFor traces of Jack the Ripper, I'd guess: issues of beating prostitutes,\nwhich comes up first in the cab ride and later at the brothel itself (of\ncourse, this has de Sadean applications as well). Maybe the casual mention\nof the murdered body near the cafe, even though this seems to be more the\nvictim of a thugee attack than that of a knifeman. Maybe the serial\nkillings perpetrated by the evil twins. Maybe even the hallucinatory\ntalking skull trick (that Agilus uses in the shop) seems like the visions\nof or by a ripper?\n\nSince Budrys was only writing a brief review, it is probably nothing more\nthan a few details such as these, which stuck in his mind as possible hooks\nfor other readers.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }