{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2086", "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": 2086, "subject": "Ziggurat confusion", "messages": 9, "voices": 4, "first": "2000-01-24T17:38:08+00:00", "last": "2000-01-29T10:45:01+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "2000-01-24T17:38:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis and Alex, please help out a confused citizen. (Yes, there are spoilers, but I'm not going to leave any space.)\n\nmantis:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Point one: Where does Gene Wolfe's sympathy lie in the story? Swanwick\nsays to use the standard \"find the wolf\" trick. The wolf in this story is\nthe coyote. Who killed the coyote? Emory did." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How do we know that, and why would he do such a thing?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Point b: Who killed the son? Emory did." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How do we know that, and ditto?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Question Marquess: Why does the final scene seem like incest? Because it\nis incest--the \"alien\" is one of his daughters. The allegations of incest\nfor the divorce were probably a lie, but as is so often the case in Wolfe\nfiction, the lie has a terrible way of coming true in the end." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But this is dreadful. It means that he also shot his wife and other daughter, and that there were no alien women at all, and that the gun and the ax were never stolen. How do you know this? I would certainly not have guessed this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All together, iirc, this paints a feral picture of Emory: destroying his\nbetter self the coyote, killing the rival his son, and marrying his own\ndaughter to \"start over, doing it right this time.\" Not unlike Baldanders,\nin cutting himself off from the outside world (and/or God) in order to\npersue megalomania; or the pirate scientist of 5HC; but in detail more like\nseveral heroic Greek horrors all at once." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems too melodramatic to me; why do you (or Swanwick) reject the science-fictional story in favor of a homicidal maniac interpretation?\n\nNow Alex:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hmmm... Yeah, I caught the Tamar reference--I hadn't thought of the\ndaughter-of-the-future possibility--but this is a clone of a step-daughter if\nso, which IMO makes Emory considerably less responsible for incest than, say,\nSeverian. I simply don't think the story presents things so as to suggest\nthat the incest (with the daughters) is real." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Me neither. Besides, Tamar was a daughter-in-law, and it was her own idea. Though I suppose pun could be intended." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, Emory kills the coyote--but acknowledges his own guilt, if you look\nclosely. Certainly he's a more ambiguously bad figure than\nBaldanders (not that Wolfe doesn't give even Baldanders his devil's due)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Does he admit it? Where...and why? He *likes* the coyote." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It seems to me that Emory IS quite Weer-ish: they share a kind of curiosity\nthat can lead them into error/disaster, yet also seems to serve as a redeeming\nelement (consider a Weer who DIDN'T hunt for the treasure with Lois, or an\nEmory who said \"hell, I'm not going back to my cabin with those crazies, let's\nfind a motel, son\"). Both have a kind of wisdom that they often seem unable\nto apply to themselves (note Weer's comment re: testifying about the abuse\nto the \"good twin\"--his reference here to God makes me have trouble seeing\nEmory as a cut-off-from-creation figure like Baldanders). Emory's certainly\nflawed, and his curiosity gets his son murdered, but he also seems to me to\nhave a considerable amount of author sympathy (in this sense I disagree with\nGardner Dozois' comments in the intro to whichever Year's Best SF he didn't\nprint \"The Ziggurat\" in as well as with Swanwick--Wolfe hardly ever portrays\na protagonist without massive, potentially deadly, flaws--but Emory has as\nmuch underlying author sympathy with him as, say, Number 5 or Weer, I think).\nIn fact, I think one thing this story does is set up a situation where it\nseems to be a possibility of a \"lone man defending his cabin against invaders\"\nand then turns it inside-out--neither the man nor the invaders are purely\nevil or wrong--both are trapped by misunderstanding and human nature--but the\nend indicates that even in these cirumstances, after blood and pain, there may\nbe a possibility for something else, even if that's ambiguous, too." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gosh, this is certainly the way I read it too. I mean, look at those details of making the bunk bed for Jan, of planning how the girls can sleep, of the \"girls\" and \"boys\" demarcations, they don't seem like the set-up for a bloodbath, and I completely believed in his fatherly feeling for the girls. Falsely accusing a man of inappropriate behavior is one of the deadliest and most unfair weapons a woman can aim; it's what made Sue Miller's THE GOOD MOTHER such a frightening work of realism. I didn't even think he killed the coyote, and I still don't get that. Can someone help me out?\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-01-24T17:57:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah, we're all using a very loose interpretation of \"kill\" (at least I\nam, and assume Swanwick, mantis are doing the same) here. Emory's LOVE\nfor the coyote, trying to tame it, slowly luring it closer to his house,\noverrides it's fundamental aversion to man-smell. It comes to trust people.\nThus, it dies. Emory is an indirect agent, but feels responsible (read\nclosely the part where he finds the body). I think a similar accusation can\nbe made for his son's death--he causes his son to return to a danger that\nkills him, but it's not a murder.\n\nAs far as I'm aware, John Kessel (in private conversation, I don't think\nhe's written about this anywhere, although maybe I'm wrong) is the only person\nI know who suspects that Emory is delusional and sets up the massacre that\nyou (and I) find incompatible with the rest of the implications. As I\nunderstand it, Swanwick & mantis are going with an SF approach, but take a\nnegative view of Emory's actions that I don't.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-01-24T18:39:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In fact, thinking about this--doesn't Severian? Horn? Silk? someone somewhere\nsay \"we all destroy what we love best.\" THIS is the sense in which Emory\nkills the coyote and his son--a strong analogy, in my mind, to the ways\nSeverian and Dorcas truly torture each other--with, I think, love as the root\nof the pain. \n\nBLUE seems to deal with this in a central way, as well. I think I've said\nbefore that Wolfe seems to have a strong similarity with Dante's exploration\nin The Divine Comedy (adopted from St. Thomas, of course)--that only where \nthere is love can there be real moral pain or evil--at the root of the worst\nthings lies a perversion or erroneous hierarchy of loves--for Dante, and, I\nsuspect Wolfe, a hierarchy that mistakes some lesser object for God and inverts\nthe ladder of love into a parodic downward spiral. Thus the insistence that\nalthough Abaia/Erebus etc. can thwart the Increate to the extent that they\nviolate, presumably, the inherent good of their own natures, they cannot fail\nto serve also as unwilling and angry agents of Providence--another theme in the\nphilosophies I'm guessing Wolfe is most comfortable with (anyway, the ones\nChesterton's POV is based upon*).\n\n\n* for a (very Christian-biased, of course) treatment of the parts of Aquinas/\nAugustine/Anselm/Aristotle and other \"A\"-list philosophers who seem to have an\ninfluence on Wolfe, I suggest Etienne Gilson's _The Spirit of Medieval \nPhilosophy_, especially as Wolfe doesn't claim to have read them all in the\noriginal Latin/Greek or anything.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-25T12:11:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI'm with Alga on this one. The interpretation she rejects seems completely\nwrong to me, along with the notion that Weer is a mass murderer. I submit\nthat, since Wolfe has explicitly denied the latter notion, those who read\nsuch stories this way are \"overreading\" and should drop back and read\nagain. I don't deny that Wolfe invites such overreading, but when (a) other\nreaders see it differently and (b) those other readers are confirmed by\nWolfe, then re-reading seems to be in order.\n\tIn case anyone does not get Alga's reference to Tamar, you can read it in\nGenesis 38. However, David's actual daughter was also named Tamar, so\n\"incest\" of some sort might be a possibility. The description of Ziggurat's\nTamar as being from an eastern country would fit either, but fits the\nearlier Tamar better, since Emory is an American. If Wolfe had written that\nhis Tamar was an American, then the allusion would be to the daughter of\nDavid; she would be of the same race as Emory, so \"incest\" would be a\npossibility. Since she is an outsider, from far away, the allusion is to\nthe daughter in law of Jacob, whose father was a Canaanite.\n\tIf you want to allegorize this story, and I'm not sure of this at all,\nconsider the New Testament notion that the kingdom is being taken from the\nunworthy bride (the Jews) and being given to others (the Gentiles) -- a\npoint made often in the Old Testament as well. (Gee, now I've got to reread\nthe story myself and see if this works at all....) But before closing,\nremember that Luke 4 and other passages refer to various gentile women who\nwere brought into Israel as \"worthy gentile brides\" and as signs that\nIsrael was (at these times) judged unworthy because of (spiritual)\nharlotry. (Examples: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the widow helped by Elijah).\n\nNutria" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 05:38 PM 1/24/00 -0500, you wrote:\nMantis and Alex, please help out a confused citizen. (Yes, there are\nspoilers, but I'm not going to leave any space.)\n\nmantis:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Point one: Where does Gene Wolfe's sympathy lie in the story? Swanwick\nsays to use the standard \"find the wolf\" trick. The wolf in this story is\nthe coyote. Who killed the coyote? Emory did." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How do we know that, and why would he do such a thing?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Point b: Who killed the son? Emory did." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How do we know that, and ditto?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Question Marquess: Why does the final scene seem like incest? Because it\nis incest--the \"alien\" is one of his daughters. The allegations of incest\nfor the divorce were probably a lie, but as is so often the case in Wolfe\nfiction, the lie has a terrible way of coming true in the end." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But this is dreadful. It means that he also shot his wife and other\ndaughter, and that there were no alien women at all, and that the gun and\nthe ax were never stolen. How do you know this? I would certainly not have\nguessed this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All together, iirc, this paints a feral picture of Emory: destroying his\nbetter self the coyote, killing the rival his son, and marrying his own\ndaughter to \"start over, doing it right this time.\" Not unlike Baldanders,\nin cutting himself off from the outside world (and/or God) in order to\npersue megalomania; or the pirate scientist of 5HC; but in detail more like\nseveral heroic Greek horrors all at once." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It seems too melodramatic to me; why do you (or Swanwick) reject the\nscience-fictional story in favor of a homicidal maniac interpretation?\n\nNow Alex:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Hmmm... Yeah, I caught the Tamar reference--I hadn't thought of the\ndaughter-of-the-future possibility--but this is a clone of a\nstep-daughter if\nso, which IMO makes Emory considerably less responsible for incest than,\nsay,\nSeverian. I simply don't think the story presents things so as to suggest\nthat the incest (with the daughters) is real." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Me neither. Besides, Tamar was a daughter-in-law, and it was her own idea." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Though I suppose pun could be intended." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, Emory kills the coyote--but acknowledges his own guilt, if you look\nclosely. Certainly he's a more ambiguously bad figure than\nBaldanders (not that Wolfe doesn't give even Baldanders his devil's due)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Does he admit it? Where...and why? He *likes* the coyote." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It seems to me that Emory IS quite Weer-ish: they share a kind of\ncuriosity\nthat can lead them into error/disaster, yet also seems to serve as a\nredeeming\nelement (consider a Weer who DIDN'T hunt for the treasure with Lois, or an\nEmory who said \"hell, I'm not going back to my cabin with those crazies,\nlet's\nfind a motel, son\"). Both have a kind of wisdom that they often seem\nunable\nto apply to themselves (note Weer's comment re: testifying about the abuse\nto the \"good twin\"--his reference here to God makes me have trouble seeing\nEmory as a cut-off-from-creation figure like Baldanders). Emory's\ncertainly\nflawed, and his curiosity gets his son murdered, but he also seems to me to\nhave a considerable amount of author sympathy (in this sense I disagree\nwith\nGardner Dozois' comments in the intro to whichever Year's Best SF he didn't\nprint \"The Ziggurat\" in as well as with Swanwick--Wolfe hardly ever\nportrays\na protagonist without massive, potentially deadly, flaws--but Emory has as\nmuch underlying author sympathy with him as, say, Number 5 or Weer, I\nthink).\nIn fact, I think one thing this story does is set up a situation where it\nseems to be a possibility of a \"lone man defending his cabin against\ninvaders\"\nand then turns it inside-out--neither the man nor the invaders are purely\nevil or wrong--both are trapped by misunderstanding and human\nnature--but the\nend indicates that even in these cirumstances, after blood and pain,\nthere may\nbe a possibility for something else, even if that's ambiguous, too." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gosh, this is certainly the way I read it too. I mean, look at those\ndetails of making the bunk bed for Jan, of planning how the girls can\nsleep, of the \"girls\" and \"boys\" demarcations, they don't seem like the\nset-up for a bloodbath, and I completely believed in his fatherly feeling\nfor the girls. Falsely accusing a man of inappropriate behavior is one of\nthe deadliest and most unfair weapons a woman can aim; it's what made Sue\nMiller's THE GOOD MOTHER such a frightening work of realism. I didn't even\nthink he killed the coyote, and I still don't get that. Can someone help me\nout?\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-28T10:49:08+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tJust finished rereading Ziggurat, and some comments on the mooted \"evil\nEmory\" interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:11 PM 1/25/00 -0600, I wrote:\nIn case anyone does not get Alga's reference to Tamar, you can read it in\nGenesis 38. However, David's actual daughter was also named Tamar, so\n\"incest\" of some sort might be a possibility. The description of Ziggurat's\nTamar as being from an eastern country would fit either, but fits the\nearlier Tamar better, since Emory is an American. If Wolfe had written that\nhis Tamar was an American, then the allusion would be to the daughter of\nDavid; she would be of the same race as Emory, so \"incest\" would be a\npossibility. Since she is an outsider, from far away, the allusion is to\nthe daughter in law of Jacob, whose father was a Canaanite." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWrong, Jim. Tamar is not her name, but the name Emory gives her, and he\nexplicitly calls the name that of Solomon's sister. Now, Wolfe-like, that\ncan also allude to Tamar's rape by her brother, and also to the earlier\nTamar, but first we have to deal with what is explicit. When she sees the\nlion on Emory's pen, she hums \"God Save the Queen.\" The lion is the Lion of\nJudah, symbol of the tribe of Judah and of the Davidic royal house. In an\nall-woman society, the king is a queen of course, but the allusion is to\nSolomon. (Also to Jesus.) With this in mind, I want to see any hint of\nevidence that Amnon's rape of sister Tamar is in view, or the earlier\nTamar's seduction of her father-in-law Judah. \n\tAs to who killed the coyote: Emory says that he was responsible for the\nbeast's death ONLY in the sense that he had tamed it, and thus it was not\nprepared when it came against a human interested in killing it. I see no\nhint that Emory himself killed it. \n\tAs to who killed Brook, the son: Where is there any hint that Emory did\nthis? True, by going back to the cabin, he might be seen as somehow\nresponsible, in a way analogous to the death of the coyote. But he was\nasleep at the time the boy was killed. Where is there any hint of anything\nmore?\n\tAs for how \"bad\" it was to return to the cabin; well, remember that this\nman is an engineer (Wolfe?) who has lost his business, and now sees the\npossibility of getting hold of technology that will enable him to recover\nhis life. He's starting to live again, after only wanting to die. \n\t(Where's the Wolfe? Emory is the Wolfe. He is the kind of person Wolfe is\nor wants to be. Emory's comments to his daughter about God and lying are\npure Wolfe. I'll bet Emory's hostility to television is also Wolfe's opinion.)\n\tNow, if this story were written in the first person, say as a deposition\nbefore a judge trying Emory for murder, we would be invited to consider\nthat the narrative is a succession of self-serving lies and distortions.\nBut that's not how the story is written. It is in the limited third person.\nThe narrator is Wolfe. I find no hint that Emory is evil, or insane, or\nself-deceived. \n\tTrue, he's flawed. He shacked up with Jan before marrying her, and that is\nnot Wolfe's value system. Emory admits to Brook that his motivation for\ngetting involved with Jan was selfish. But that's a \"little\" sin, committed\nby a man who gives very good advice to his stepdaughter about lying, a man\nwho knows better, and is suffering for it.\n\tAs for the women on the timeship being clones of Emory's women: Where is\nthere any hint of this? It involves a LOT of reading \"behind the lines\" to\ncome to this conclusion; to wit, that eggs were taken from the girl and\nused to make clones that have come back in time. But in fact, the story\ncontinually says that these Brownies are OFTEN coming back in time and\nmessing with people. Stealing eggs? Maybe. Stealing children? Well, that is\nindeed mentioned. So perhaps the hypothesis is not completely amiss. But\nwhere is the evidence that Tamar is herself a clone of the girl? (I cannot\nremember which girl it is, so I cannot give the name here; my book is at\nhome.)\n\tMoreover, the intermediate color of the skin of the three future women\nleads me against this hypothesis. They look like what you think of when you\nthink of a future wherein all the various races of earth have melded into\none. The daughters are American white girls. A clone of one of them should\nlook like that, not be brownish. Yet all the future women are brownish;\nhence \"brownies.\" How can they be clones of various white, black, and\nyellow women of the past?\n\tI'm happy to be set straight on this, but for now I don't see it. The end\ndoes not \"feel like incest\" to me. I don't know how you get that from the\ntext. \n\tAs I see it, at the psychological level, we have a man twice wounded by\nadult women, and now wounded again by female children. He wants to die.\nHe's definitely estranged from women, as his comments, however judiciously\nphrased, indicate. Then we have the three women, who are definitely fearful\nand estranged from men. At the end, this man and one of the women come\ntogether, overcoming their fear and estrangement. That, it seems to me, is\nwhat the story is \"about.\"\n\tIt's also about a man gradually recovering from two horrible losses (his\nbusiness and his marriage). First he plans to kill himself. Then he begins\nto see a possibility of forming another business. He also tames the coyote,\na \"preliminary love\" that is a stage toward his \"taming\" of \"Tamar.\" (I\nthink the name is important in this connection.) Thus, the story is \"about\"\nrecovering from loss and finding a new life." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\tI also wrote:\nIf you want to allegorize this story, and I'm not sure of this at all,\nconsider the New Testament notion that the kingdom is being taken from the\nunworthy bride (the Jews) and being given to others (the Gentiles) -- a\npoint made often in the Old Testament as well. (Gee, now I've got to reread\nthe story myself and see if this works at all....) But before closing,\nremember that Luke 4 and other passages refer to various gentile women who\nwere brought into Israel as \"worthy gentile brides\" and as signs that\nIsrael was (at these times) judged unworthy because of (spiritual)\nharlotry. (Examples: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the widow helped by Elijah)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tNaw, Jim; this does not work. I cannot see enough to make this work.\nApologies for tossing this spanner into the works.\n\tIt IS, however, interesting that the timeship is called a Ziggurat, and\nthere are also the references back to the Tower of Babel. Consider that at\nthat Tower (Genesis 11) we have a confusion of tongues, after which people\nare estranged and can no longer work together. That does seem to be a theme\nin the story. The women speak a different language, that may or may not be\nfuture English. There is also the estrangement between men and women that\nis the major theme of the story. That estrangement is overcome by love,\nsurprisingly and unexpectedly. Thus, the Ziggurat is destroyed in the end.\nBabel defeated.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-01-28T12:47:36+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nOne thing--I think the twins are not necessarily \"American white girls\"--\nisn't their father, the tennis player, Mediterranean? My copy is at home\nso I can't confirm this, but it's definitely the impression I got. This is\nthe best point in favor of the \"twin clone in the future\" idea--which I'm\nstill not sure is intended.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-28T12:41:22+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:47 PM 1/28/00 -0500, you wrote:\n\n\nOne thing--I think the twins are not necessarily \"American white girls\"--\nisn't their father, the tennis player, Mediterranean? My copy is at home\nso I can't confirm this, but it's definitely the impression I got. This is\nthe best point in favor of the \"twin clone in the future\" idea--which I'm\nstill not sure is intended." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I didn't pick up any reference to Mediterranean, but perhaps someone else did.\n\nNutricious" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mark millman", "address": "millman at us.ncipher.com" }, "date": "2000-01-28T14:14:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ziggurat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't believe that the women from the future are clones \nof the captured twin; for one thing, the women are the \nsame height as a pair of eleven-year-old girls. For another, \nthe twins are described as having dark hair, but no mention \nof their skin tone is ever made, as far as I can recall (I don't \nhave a copy of the story with me either). This suggests that \nthey're not particularly swarthy, at least as compared to \nEmory, Jan, and Brook. The women are noticeably dark, \nbut not so much so that in Africa they wouldn't seem no-\nticeably light-skinned. I think that if Wolfe had wanted to \nsuggest that the women are direct descendants of the twin, \nhe'd have given another (maybe only one more, but at least \nthat one) clue. The facts that that the twins and the women \nare the same size; that the twins' father is Mediterranean and \nEmory gives Tamar a Hebrew name; that the name Tamar \nis associated with an incestuous episode; and that Emory's\nrelationship with Tamar must, to some degree, be a paternal\none at least in the sense of providing education, protection,\nand the necessities of life (as Tamar is unfamiliar with the \nculture, doesn't speak the language, and is wounded to boot)\nall create an atmosphere in which the implication that the rela-\ntionship between Emory and Tamar is somehow incestuous \nnaturally arises; but this doesn't have to mean that there is any \nliteral sort of incest occurring, and in fact, I don't think that\nthere is.\n\nMark Millman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:47 PM 28-01-00 -0500, Alex David Groce \n wrote:\n\n\nOne thing--I think the twins are not necessarily \n\"American white girls\"--isn't their father, the \ntennis player, Mediterranean? My copy is at \nhome so I can't confirm this, but it's definitely \nthe impression I got. This is the best point in \nfavor of the \"twin clone in the future\" idea--\nwhich I'm still not sure is intended.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall \nmake you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University\nComputer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "2000-01-29T10:45:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) ZigguRat confusion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find myself totally in agreement with the Rat, the new Reformed Rat, His Nutriciousness, who went back to contradict himself on \"The Ziggurat.\" (Quote not included as it is quite long, but it contradicts the Swanwick theory proposed by mantis and also establishes that it's Tamar #2, not #1 who is referred to--I had actually forgotten that there was a #2, so thanks). Hey, if we can do it, maybe there's hope for the citizens of Blue.\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }