Subject: (urth) Ziggurat as Delusion or SF

From: Dennis G. Berdanis <endymion9 at mindspring.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2000 17:44:24 +0000

I've read a lot of the interesting posts concerning the *incest* slant, and
they definitely make me think.  It's interesting to look back on things like
the twins hiding from that perspective and see things differently than when
you read the story the first time.

>From the incest standpoint the scenes I see differently.

1.  One twin hiding in the chimney and one under the bed.  The aliens/girls
attacking Emery with no apparent reason and biting him.  Even shooting him
in the first place.

2.  Brook died in the initial battle.  Jan confronted Emery about the abuse,
she ended up grabbing the rifle and didn't know how to work it, Brook
grabbed it and knocked Jan out but was shot and died.  All of the later
discussions with Brook, had Brook praising Emery (if my memory is correct)
"You handled that so well" type convos.  That would be part of Emery's
delusion.

3.  The twin having her own delusion to explain away the abuse.  The aliens
made me take off all my clothes, etc.

What I am more interested in, however, are people's opinions if this is
truly a sf story.

1.  What caused our future society to abandon men and only allow female
births?  Would it be the traditional "Men destroyed the world and can't be
allowed to do it again.  Women would never do that?"  That would explain the
women's fear of men.  I believe there was a new Outer Limits episode a few
years back that dealt with women experimenting with allowing men back into
society in the future and deciding against it.  The handful of men corrupted
the women, so no more were cloned.

2.  Why would this future society of women be so prone to violence?  I can
understand them robbing the cabin and vehicles to repair their ship.  Why
would they be so determined to shoot anything they didn't understand?  Why
would they force the twin to go to their ship and strip down then return
her?  For her eggs as other's have speculated?

These questions apply no matter which viewpoint of the story is taken.

1.  Why did Emery keep saying the coyote was killed with a cyanide gun.
What is a cyanide gun exactly?  How would he know it was killed with this
type of gun unless he did it?]

2.  Is it proper to call a place to store a dead body a bier?  I kept
expecting Emery to give his son and the coyote a viking funeral and torch
them, but he only stored them yet called it a bier.

3.  What were Emery's plans for the coyote.  I never understood, other than
Wolfe symbolism, what plans Emery could have for the frozen coyote body?

Thanks for any comments.  Enjoyable read.  Very thought provoking.

Dennis/Endy

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 11:03:27 +0000

>the women, so no more were cloned.

Hard to say what precisely caused it--however, the idea is not new to Wolfe--
"In Looking Glass Castle" and "Many Mansions" both involve future female-only
societies.  In general, I think Wolfe's take on such societies is that they
are indicative of a terrible failure of humanity to deal with its nature.

>her?  For her eggs as other's have speculated?

I think part of this is Wolfe's sly way of pointing out that men and women
all _that_ different:  the "Brownies" aren't pacifistic or over-trusting, and
their behavior (intentionally I suspect) calls to mind the paranoid and panic
stricken behavior of a lot of crews of crashed spaceships in alien territory
over the history of sf.  Remember:  presumably at some point, their society
CHOSE to eliminate men, so Emory is an almost mythical monster from the past
in their eyes.

>type of gun unless he did it?]

I finally looked this up on the web.  I'd heard the term before and knew it
was some kind of animal trap, but couldn't remember the specifics:
"Also introduced in the 1940s was a revolutionary, deadly new predator weapon.
The "coyote getter" is a pistol cartridge-powered cyanide gun that shoots a
puff of deadly sodium cyanide dust into the mouth of any carnivore, omnivore,
or carrion-eater that tugs on its scented wick. On contact with the moisture in
the animal's mouth (or eyes, or wherever it hits) gas is released and the 
animal is gassed to death (or blinded). A highly effective killer, the coyote 
getter quickly gained widespread use. Eventually it was usurped by a newer 
model, the spring loaded "M-44" coyote getter, which is still used today. 
Over the years coyote getters have killed countless thousands of predators, 
non-target animals, and even a few humans."
(http://http://arrs.envirolink.org/ar-voices/eyeeye.html)

Emory can tell because presumably the coyote is still beside the trap.  THIS
is, as far as I can tell, all that's involved in Emory's "killing" the coyote.
He taught it not to fear human smell and so it took the bait.

>Wolfe symbolism, what plans Emery could have for the frozen coyote body?

He wanted to give it a proper burial, as with his son.  He felt (rightly, but
in a limited sense) responsible for its death.

It's (in part) Emory's empathy for the coyote and his feeling of responsibility
at its death that makes it hard for me to swallow the "Emory is damned" (see
Nicholas Gevers' "Three readings") interpretations of this story.  "Follow the
Wolfe" for me does not lead to Emory as delusional or evil.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 23:56:45 +0000

>Dennis G. Berdanis asked some questions, I think I can answer a few:
[...]
>He taught it not to fear human smell and so it took the bait.

This supports my opinion that Emery's claim that he killed the coyote is
completely absurd, for at least two reasons.

1. Coyotes have become, in most places, quite adept at living with humans.
They eat livestock and garbage and have even been reported to attack small
dogs. There is no reason to suppose that a coyote today would fear human
scent.

2. Even if we ignore point one, coyote getters have been used very
successfully for decades. Either the people who set them know how to
disguise their scent effectively or coyotes take the bait, despite the
human scent.

Emery, for whatever reason, wants to feel responsible for the coyote's
death, even though such a feeling is completely unreasonable.

Or, if we accept the "Maximum Delusion" hypothesis, Emery says he killed
the coyote because he actually did kill it directly (with gun or axe,
perhaps) and he is hallucinating the cyanide gun sequence to assuage his
guilt, but he can't escape it completely.

I have to say, however, that if Wolfe really intended the "Maximum
Delusion" reading of the story to be an "equally valid" one, then I wish he
hadn't written it in the first place.

William Ansley

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 13:09:58 +0000

>hadn't written it in the first place.

	I really don't think we have to credit it. The motivation for this reading
in the first place was to "deliver" Wolfe from the "scandal" of writing a
story that is "negative" about women. A better reading shows this is not a
real problem. The Max Del reading just does not work with the facts of the
story as they are presented. Parallels between the three women and the
three women, of course, are present.
	I think Gevers has done a good job, in general, of pointing to ambiguities
in the story. I just don't think this particular approach is valid.

Nutria