{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2631",
    "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": 2631,
    "subject": "Copperheaded Lilith",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-05-09T03:20:52+00:00",
    "last": "2001-05-09T08:38:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0391@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-09T03:20:52+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Copperheaded Lilith",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "    Here is my spin on \"Copperhead\". As others have mentioned, the \"boys\"\nmentioned by the naked woman are, indeed, Cain and Abel, as well as the\nmurdered man and his murderer in the story's version of our modern world. As\nis all too characteristic of Wolfe's characters, the NP isn't paying\nattention when he ought to be, even though the woman was answering the\nquestion he had just asked her. She was telling him about the place where\nshe came from, which was the OT book of Genesis. As Wolfe usually does when\nhe retells a story from mythology, or elsewhere, he twists the story to suit\nhis purposes. The boys the woman mentioned were literally Cain and Abel. As\nboth Endymion and Paul Duggan have noted before me, the difficult phrase\n\"Vhas a groose.\", I translate as \"[He] Was a grouse.\" In American slang, a\ngrouse is a person who habitually complains. She was referring to Adam, and\nshe is, as mantis intimated, Lilith.\n\n    When the NP, in his new-found Pride at the Power of his position,\ninadvertently pressed a button on the Changer and exchanged the copperhead\nsnake in the leaves for its cognate in The Garden, he got Lilith, Adam's\nfirst wife, who represents Sin, in general, and Lust, specifically. The\nirony is that when Lilith grabbed the Changer and pressed the button, *she*\nexchanged the NP for the old Adam she disdained, who \"grunted\" over her, who\nis the very tall man at the end of the story. And he is a man, not God;\nWolfe conflates the biblical passages alluded to so that it is the new Adam\nwho does both the cursing and who \"shall crush your head under my heel.\"\n\n    I'll leave it to Nutria or Alex to expand on the religious\nramifications.\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0392@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-09T08:38:40+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Copperheaded Lilith",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0391@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Wed, 9 May 2001, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n    When the NP, in his new-found Pride at the Power of his position,\ninadvertently pressed a button on the Changer and exchanged the copperhead\nsnake in the leaves for its cognate in The Garden, he got Lilith, Adam's\nfirst wife, who represents Sin, in general, and Lust, specifically. The\nirony is that when Lilith grabbed the Changer and pressed the button, *she*\nexchanged the NP for the old Adam she disdained, who \"grunted\" over her, who\nis the very tall man at the end of the story. And he is a man, not God;\nWolfe conflates the biblical passages alluded to so that it is the new Adam\nwho does both the cursing and who \"shall crush your head under my heel.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Although I'm not sure how (if?) it fits with the creation narratives in\nGenesis, the Lilith myth seems to take place before the Fall.  There is a\ntradition that before the Fall, humanity and all of nature were different,\nmore glorious.  This accounts for Adam's godlike appearance, his authority\nto condemn Lilith, and for the weirdness of the place where the new\nPresident ends up; he's in the unfallen Eden where the trees sing and the\nthe ram's horns make music.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}