3 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
David Duffy quote and wrote:
BEASTS: a case might be made that many of the characters do not want to be
Reynard can be seen as doing his duty as he sees it.
Eek, Reynard as the hero? Even more horrifying than anything I saw. <g> (Not really, I mean I saw that: just that it seems like the grimmest reading. Judas, yes; a necessary-for-the-book Judas, certainly; but Judas as hero? In truth "Judas" doesn't capture the Machievellian aspect of Reynard at all: Machievelli as hero?) Please remind be what duty Reynard is doing, besides his own reproduction: I can't see the manipulative masks for the masks of manipulation.
2 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
ENGINE SUMMER: Rush-as-we-know-him does not do his duty, rather, he is like
Rush is offered a choice at the end of his narrative (which suddenly reminds me of the offer to Silk). He knows what he is getting into. Apropos of the end, could his name mean Book (papyrus that speaks)?
Right, well which end of his narrative? The human end (hi, let me make this brain tape of you--it won't hurt at all) or the recorded end (did I really know what I was agreeing to when I said yes)? [Where is my copy of ES, anyway?]
Yes, definitely his name means book. (I think it would be "Rush That Speaks" = papyrus scroll = book). There is also a weird link to Mount Rushmore, with Rush's head in the Teddy Rooseveldt spot; but this is probably just another artefact of my overactive reading.
And yes, thanks for mentioning Silk, because that is what I was going to write in my previous post: that Silk is the closest thing to a JC-style hero that Wolfe has written. Or so it has seemed to me.
2 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
As for the sfnal rational, the stuff was brought back by an interstellar probe. Like you said before, mana from heaven.
This always stuck in my a craw a little, but many substances are absorbed very well by the lungs, including finely powdered glucose. Using nebulizers, people inhale 1-2 ml of fluid over 4-5 minutes, so I guess you could inhale as much as 50 calories an hour ;)
They probably just take an i-v drip in between chapters <g>. (Shades of Delany's NOVA, come to think of it.) But no, I myself wouldn't try to argue the rationale on this one.
=mantis=