{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2535", "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": 2535, "subject": "Driving past Castleview", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-01-09T09:59:10+00:00", "last": "2001-01-11T18:41:23+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "2001-01-09T09:59:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Driving past Castleview", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Spectacled Bear wrote:\nDoes that mean you can answer all, many, or even some of\nthe long list of questions I posted a few weeks ago?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I did say I would have a bash at those myself. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes made\nsome interesting suggestions, here are some of mine. Three key points\nfirst:\n\n1. I would like to resurrect Nutria’s argument that Casteview is “about\nperception”. This is a recurring theme in Wolfe’s work, and a\nparticularly important one here. Wolfe makes Shields spend two solid\npages explaining to Bob Roberts how people who saw a castle with three,\nfour or even five towers could actually have been seeing the same\ncastle. He even makes a little model, for pity’s sake. Wolfe could have\nsaved himself a big wodge of expository writing here simply by saying\nthat everyone who saw the castle saw the same number of towers. That he\ndidn’t suggests to me that he wants us to think about people seeing the\nsame thing differently because they’re seeing it from different\nperspectives.\n\n2. Tom Stoppard once described “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”\nas the dramatic equivalent of driving past Elsinore castle. You might\nsee a ghost on the ramparts, you might glimpse a funeral procession in\nyour wing mirror, but like poor R and G themselves you would have no\nidea from these snapshots what the “real story” was all about. I find\nthat a useful way of thinking about Castleview.\n\n3. We see the supernatural characters, which Dan'l Danehy-Oakes usefully\nidentifies as “fey”, primarily in terms of late western European\nmythology, and particularly Arthurian mythology. But as with the Latro\nbooks, Wolfe is writing from the post-White Goddess, post-Joseph\nCampbell standpoint that understands that mythical characters overlap.\nThus Viviane Morgan isn’t just the Lady of the Lake and Morgan le Fay,\nshe’s also the Phantom Hitcher – a modern myth which I don’t suppose\ndates back much more than 50 years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is Shields really killed?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nope. See the quote from Morte d’Arthur prefacing the book." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Who is Liam Fee... Is he really an alien or monster, as he appears to be\nwhen Hwan Lee stuns him?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He’s an alien and a faerie – different ways of looking at the same\nentity. In the fine Wolfe short story “A Cabin On the Coast” a\npipe-smoking leprechaun tells the protagonist “Would ye like to see me\nas a tiny green man wi' horns like a snail's? I can do that too.”" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Who is Lucie?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A tenant of Meadow Grass who has been turned into a vampire." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why is she pretending to be French, or if she really is French, why does she\nsound American for a while to Sally?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think she really is French, because that's how she talks when she is\nalone with Boomer. I don't know why she drops the accent with Sally, or\nwhy she picks it up again when Seth is mentioned. Wolfe gives us quite a\nfew hints about Lucie, which makes me feel there’s something here we’re\njust not seeing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "G. Gordon Kitty is great fun" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed. I wish there was more of him in the novel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What's all the business with the organ playing in the museum?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can’t improve on Dan’l’s \"cool effects?\" With its insanely,\nludicrously frenetic pace, and magically-transformed cats, I don’t think\nthis is a book we are supposed to take –too- seriously." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Viviane Morgan appears to be Vivian *and* Morgan le Fay. How does she\nmanage to be both?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because these are just our personifications of the same supernatural\nbeing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Von Madadh is King of Hounds or Wolves, and he's the dog that Sally\nthinks is Rexy. But what's he doing? Is he just there to lure everyone to the\nCastle?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Seems so to me. Given that he’s the leader of Morgan’s troops in the\nfinal battle, and gives Shields his mortal wound, I suspect that he’s\nalso Mordred." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is all the trouble at Meadow Grass to do with the attempts to kill Wrangler?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not necessarily. The camp has the misfortune to be both isolated and\nlocated near a gateway to Faerie, so a certain amount of mischief seems\ninevitable." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "2001-01-11T18:41:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Driving past Castleview", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:59 2001-01-09 +0000, Tony Ellis wrote:\nSpectacled Bear wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Does that mean you can answer all, many, or even some of\nthe long list of questions I posted a few weeks ago?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I did say I would have a bash at those myself. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes made\nsome interesting suggestions, here are some of mine. Three key points\nfirst:\n\n1. I would like to resurrect Nutria’s argument that Casteview is “about\nperception”. This is a recurring theme in Wolfe’s work, and a\nparticularly important one here. Wolfe makes Shields spend two solid\npages explaining to Bob Roberts how people who saw a castle with three,\nfour or even five towers could actually have been seeing the same\ncastle. He even makes a little model, for pity’s sake. Wolfe could have\nsaved himself a big wodge of expository writing here simply by saying\nthat everyone who saw the castle saw the same number of towers. That he\ndidn’t suggests to me that he wants us to think about people seeing the\nsame thing differently because they’re seeing it from different\nperspectives." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's very true. These things don't get in there by accident,\nespecially with Wolfe. Like the talos factory. So I agree,\nperception is important, and that explains why some people\nsee aliens, others fairies, others wild Indians. The same thing\nhappens here, of course, though they tend to be weather balloons." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. Tom Stoppard once described “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”\nas the dramatic equivalent of driving past Elsinore castle. You might\nsee a ghost on the ramparts, you might glimpse a funeral procession in\nyour wing mirror, but like poor R and G themselves you would have no\nidea from these snapshots what the “real story” was all about. I find\nthat a useful way of thinking about Castleview." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It certainly describes how it feels to read it! I hope for something\na little more than that, though, even if we never understand everything.\nIt already makes more sense that it did the first couple of times I read it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is Shields really killed?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nope. See the quote from Morte d’Arthur prefacing the book." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah! So, was he carrying the scabbard? I'll have a look when I get home." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Who is Liam Fee... Is he really an alien or monster, as he appears to be\nwhen Hwan Lee stuns him?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He’s an alien and a faerie – different ways of looking at the same\nentity. In the fine Wolfe short story “A Cabin On the Coast” a\npipe-smoking leprechaun tells the protagonist “Would ye like to see me\nas a tiny green man wi' horns like a snail's? I can do that too.”" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. His \"monster\" form may be his true shape or a wild distortion\ncaused by partial concussion. I quite like both of those ideas :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Who is Lucie?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A tenant of Meadow Grass who has been turned into a vampire." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Like Sancha? Sancha really *is* turned into a vampire,\ncomplete with an almost plausible rational explanation\nvery reminiscent in tone of those interviews in which\nWolfe argues for the reality of Bigfoot in historical\ntimes, or the Greek gods. Like the Bigfoot/troll, this\nis a case of Faerie being much more physically and\nobjectively \"real\" (in the story, and in Wolfe's real-life\nopinions) than we would expect. But I digress. Why would\nLucie be afraid of Sancha, or vulnerable to her? Her name\nis \"de Carabas\", too, which strongly suggests she is from\nthe Other Side, not an innocent camper." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Why is she pretending to be French, or if she really is French, why does she\nsound American for a while to Sally?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think she really is French, because that's how she talks when she is\nalone with Boomer. I don't know why she drops the accent with Sally, or\nwhy she picks it up again when Seth is mentioned. Wolfe gives us quite a\nfew hints about Lucie, which makes me feel there’s something here we’re\njust not seeing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "G. Gordon Kitty is great fun" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Agreed. I wish there was more of him in the novel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What's all the business with the organ playing in the museum?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can’t improve on Dan’l’s \"cool effects?\" With its insanely,\nludicrously frenetic pace, and magically-transformed cats, I don’t think\nthis is a book we are supposed to take –too- seriously." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Very true, but everything else *fits* so neatly. It isn't just\nsupernatural effects carelessly thrown in for effect - there\nclearly is some deeper theme. Perception, and the Arthurian\nmyth are two things that pull it all together. I just don't\nbelieve in loose ends in Wolfe, especially not big loud ones." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Viviane Morgan appears to be Vivian *and* Morgan le Fay. How does she\nmanage to be both?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because these are just our personifications of the same supernatural\nbeing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes, but there do seem to be two of them in Arthur. I think.\nProbably." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Von Madadh is King of Hounds or Wolves, and he's the dog that Sally\nthinks is Rexy. But what's he doing? Is he just there to lure everyone to the\nCastle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Seems so to me. Given that he’s the leader of Morgan’s troops in the\nfinal battle, and gives Shields his mortal wound, I suspect that he’s\nalso Mordred." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He echoes Mordred in those respects, certainly. I wonder if there\nare any other parallels? We are dealing with resonances rather than\nexact correspondences, of course, but it may shed some light somewhere.\nHe seems too likable to be Mordred, though. When he isn't killing the\nbook's main protagonist, of course ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is all the trouble at Meadow Grass to do with the attempts to kill Wrangler?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not necessarily. The camp has the misfortune to be both isolated and\nlocated near a gateway to Faerie, so a certain amount of mischief seems\ninevitable." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That might be it.\n\nSpectacled Bear." } ] } ] }