{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2237",
    "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": 2237,
    "subject": "Parliament of Fowls",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-05-06T16:37:26+00:00",
    "last": "2000-05-06T17:04:22+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0978@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "akt at attglobal.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-05-06T16:37:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Parliament of Fowls",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Adam wrote:\nThe gist of \"The Parliament of the Birds,\" as derived from my memory\nof\nBorges' account, is that the birds all gather together (the\n\"parliament\") and decide to seek the Simurgh, which is a sort of\nmythic\nKing of Birds.  The journey is long and ardurous, and many birds drop\nout along the way.  Thirty birds make it to the end of the quest."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "They"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "look at each other and realize that they, collectively, are the\nSimurgh.  (According to Borges, the word \"Simurgh\" also means\n\"thirty,\"\nIIRC.)\n\nSo the Drinkwaters, once they have \"crossed over,\" are indeed fairies.\nBut in my reading, it's not due to genetics or geography.  It's their\nliving their lives so as to be able to eventually reach the fairies'\ncountry (I refuse to call it \"fairyland\") which turns them into\nfairies,\nalthough some of them (Smoky and Alice's daughters) get there quicker\nthan other.  (And there are a few exceptions, like George and Auberon,\nwho receive special dispensations from the fairies.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I dug out Chaucer. \"The Parliament of Fowls\" is a charming Valentine's\nDay poem. The poet has been reading Scipio Africanus who tells how in a\ndream he was shown the mysteries of heaven and hell by his deceased\nfather. (This, btw, was a *very* popular \"true\" adventure reported by\nmany people throughout the medieval period, much like UFO abductions\ntoday; the form had died out--killed by Dante IMO--by the 14th c., which\nis when Chaucer lived.) The poet falls asleep and Africanus comes to him\nand, to reward him for reading his \"olde book totorn,\" takes him to a\nbeautiful park, where, behind the Temple of Venus, all the birds are\nassembled before the goddess of Nature on St. Valentine's Day. She\ndirects them to choose their mates. The royal tercel eagle chooses the\nlovely formel eagle on the goddess's hand, but two other tercels want\nher too. The three plead their cases before Nature. The parliament of\nbirds debates the case. Nature rules that the formel eagle must make her\nown choice. She asks for a year's delay before making up her mind. And\nthere is a party! Nature says twice:\n\n\"Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe,\nThat hast this wintres wedres overshake,\nAnd driven away the longe nyghtes blake!\"\n\nAnd the poet wakes, hoping that in a future dream he will learn the\noutcome.\n\nLovely. No question in my mind that JC read that! And the celebrating\nbirds in their \"blisse and joye\" do not forget \"Thankynge alwey the\nnoble goddesse of kynde.\" Dame Kind.\n\nSo Sufi maybe, Chaucer surely. (We know, too, that JC researched the\nlate medieval English period quite thoroughly before he wrote TD. And I\nimagine he was an English major; in our day Chaucer was required.)\n\n-alga"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0979@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-05-06T17:04:22+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Parliament of Fowls",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0028-0978@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "alga wrote:\nLovely. No question in my mind that JC read that! And the celebrating\nbirds in their \"blisse and joye\" do not forget \"Thankynge alwey the\nnoble goddesse of kynde.\" Dame Kind.\n\nSo Sufi maybe, Chaucer surely."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "JC amy indeed have Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (although I don't see\nmuch resemblance with LB except for the party at the end, and JC surely\ndidn't need to read Chaucer to get the idea for that).  But the first (I\nthink) chapter epigraph taken from Parliament of the Birds (at the head\nof VI, 3) gives the author as Attar, who wrote the Sufi one.\n\nIncidentally, the second of these epigraphs, at the head of VI, 5, gives\nsome indication as to how JC wanted the ending to be taken.\n\n--Adam\n\n (We know, too, that JC researched the"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "late medieval English period quite thoroughly before he wrote TD. And I\nimagine he was an English major; in our day Chaucer was required.)\n\n-alga"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}