Subject: (urth) Re: Posthumous

From: Christy <cglst7+ at pitt.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 15:26:50 +0000

I haven't read *Strange Travelers* yet (it is en route from Amazon), but I
can say that the jag on living on after death is Swedenborgian. No doubt
at the behest of Jorge Luis Borges, we can assume that Wolfe has read some 
of his material (*Heaven and Hell* is the most famous and interesting) and
is devoting some airplay to it. Swedenborg explains a system of thanatosis
that has appealed to many (most apparent is William Blake), and most
recently to M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director of *The Sixth Sense*.
Watch that movie, or read Swedenborg's book, to ask the same horrible
question that Wolfe must have already asked himself: am I already dead?

					-C-

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

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 23:50:46 +0000

Christy <cglst7+ at pitt.edu> wrote:

>ask the same horrible

Now that I think about it, that is rather horrible. If I'm already dead
then I don't have anything to look forward to!

William Ansley

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 13:18:13 +0000

I'm sure Wolfe's come across Borges references to Swedenborg, and perhaps
read some--but really the idea of dead protagonists (from "The Other Dead
Man", PEACE, etc.) is not necessarily thus derived.  It's not an unheard of
theme.  Wolfe's general take on it seems to be in the mode of "Purgatorial
Fantasy"--an alternative to Dante's view of purgatory as a place, bringing
in the tropes of the ghost story instead.  It does match Swedenborg well, but
that's probably not the only possible source.

"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