Subject: (urth) Variant 5HC and also PKD

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 07:04:43 +0000

Dan Rabin quotes and writes:

>>I vaguely remember some talk about possible diffs between "5HC" novella in
>>ORBIT and 5HC, but I can't recall if it was just speculation or somebody
>>had actually gotten down to doing the work of looking.
>
>That was me, too.  The Gene-Wolfe-three-novellas editions have a brief
>passage in the scene in the library in which the narrator finds an edition
>of the short stories of Vernor Vinge.  This passage is absent in the
>original _Orbit_ version.

Okay, I'm writing it down this time!  Same place, "Section P: Textual
Variations."

>There are, of course, several Wolfe stories that have never been collected
>in a single-author anthology.  The ones I've encountered are "A Method Bit
>in 'B'" and "Going to the Beach", and some of the ones from the last few
>years.  I recall someone posting a pointer to list, I think.

(I still think that "Going to the Beach" is a favorite of mine, but I
should dig it up and re-read it, since I might be confusing it with
something else.) I probably posted a list or two, myself, but Jonathan
Laidlow's pages is the place to go for that info--everybody go check it
out.  Set your search engine to "Gene AND Wolfe NOT Genetics" <g>.

Re: PK Dick.  FWIW I don't recall ever seeing any mention of PKD in Wolfe
interviews.  But on the personal reader's association front, I felt that
THERE ARE DOORS was quite like PKD, and the scene in URTH with little
Tzadkiel by the Brook Madregot reminded me very much of similar wassername
toward the end of PKD's DIVINE INVASION (was it?  I'm pretty sure).

Re: PKD's nickel for the door scene.  I, for one, remember it very well
(even though I sometimes forget which PKD book it was in); I, too, thought
of it when Severian wondered about his stateroom door, but I also thought
about the insane bunker doors talking to themselves in the toxic rust
deserts of what I thought was M. John Harrison's THE PASTEL CITY . . . and
this is probably wrong, since as a matter of fact, I re-read TPC not too
long ago, and I don't remember seeing that insane door again . . .

=mantis=

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

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From: Jeremy Crampton <jcrampto at osf1.gmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:40:53 +0000

mantis et al.,

>toward the end of PKD's DIVINE INVASION (was it?  I'm pretty sure).

I hadn't thought of There Are Doors. That's a good one. The Tzadkiel/Zina
(for it was she) connection in Divine Invasion (you're right!) is another
good one. Dick had in mind a kind of fairy/Athena Pallas/Mnemosyne (Gk.
goddess of memory, cf. same (?) person in the _Soldier_ books, there
epitomised as [daughter of] Gaea/sphinx) who plays to the boy Manny
("Emmanuel" ie the savior) who is damaged. She revives his memory of his
true state in what PKD called "anamnesis" or unforgetting. Anamnesis is
something others can go through as well. There are some weakish parallels
to Tzadkiel/Severian and godhood here, perhaps.

Zina is also the beside-helper PKD sometimes imagined, which some people
cite as originating in the loss of his twin sister 1 month after birth.
(Dick also sometimes identified this knowledgeable female companion with
girlfriends, such as Joan S. in Sonoma.) An analogous character is Angel
Archer in Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

That's enough PKD (ed).

Ps why does nobody ever discuss the Soldier books? I would rank them among
his best work.

best,

__
Jeremy W. Crampton		         http://geog.gmu.edu    jcrampto at gmu.edu
Dept. of Geography & Earth Science
[MS 1E2]				’Tis true; there’s magic in the web of it.
George Mason University					--Othello (III.iv.69)
Fairfax, Va 22030