{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2790", "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": 2790, "subject": "Barton, Barrington, and Pandora's Plato", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-08-20T11:40:39+00:00", "last": "2001-08-21T13:56:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net" }, "date": "2001-08-20T12:52:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Barton, Barrington, and Pandora's Plato", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Prompted by Alex's recent contribution to the list, I'm currently rereading\n\"Pandora by Holly Hollander\". I'd forgotten just how much fun it is. The\nauthorial voice is very well judged, and the picture of Holly which emerges\nis both affectionate and amusing. Lot's of nice local detail, as well, from\nthe area where Wolfe lives.\n\nI noticed with pleasure that the technique of translating Classical place\nnames into English which Wolfe uses in the Latro novels also seems to\nfeature here in a minor way. Would I be right to assume, for instance, that\n\"Dawn\", the town in which the genteel nursing home for the\nwealthy-but-criminally-insane is situated, is actually a pseudonym for the\nreal Ilinois town of \"Aurora\"?\n\nI've looked at my road atlas of the United States to check and, yes, indeed,\nAurora is situated out on the western side of the Chicago conurbation.\n\nI've assumed, like others, that the fictional town of \"Barton\" in the novel\nis really Wolfe's own home town of Barrington. Holly states early on that\nmost of the rich people live to the west of Barton in a place called \"Barton\nHills\". Sure enough, my map of the real Chicago area shows that, to the\nsouthwest of Barrington, there is a place called Barrington Hills. There's\nalso a place called South Barrington marked (to the south, of course!), and\nanother (to the north) called Lake Barrington.\n\nHolly states that Barton is \"a town of about 10,000\". Is that the size of\nthe real Barrington?\n\nShe also says that it's \"65 miles by car from the Loop.\"\n\nDo any list members live in or know the greater Chicago area well? Is that\nthe real distance from Barrington to the city centre? It doesn't look that\nfar on my map - it looks more like 30 miles. And, for the record, why is\nthat area of central Chicago called \"The Loop\"?\n\nCould she in real life have made the journey to Aurora by getting a train\ninto Chicago and then a Greyhound Bus out to Aurora? How long would it have\ntaken her?\n\n(Like it matters!)\n\nI was also delighted to see that when (chapter 7, \"How War Came to Barton\",\np56 in the NEL paperback edition) Aladdin Blue explains the myth of Pandora\nto Holly at the book sale, he offers an explicitly Platonic interpretation:\n\n \"In the first place,\" Blue lectured, \"it's a commentary on Platonism -\nthe idea that each real thing is an imperfect attempt to duplicate an ideal\none. Epimetheus had made mankind like the gods, so the gods made Pandora\nlike a goddess. The Greeks were saying that real people are carricatures of\nideal people - their gods.\"\n\nNow, this is gold dust to me, because I've been asserting for some time that\nthe rationale behind Wolfe's use of symbolism is essentially Platonic,\nparticularly in The Book of the New Sun. I even pestered people (sorry,\nPotto) with questions about where they thought Wolfe got his Platonism\nfrom - primary or secondary sources? Here, at least, is a direct reference\nto a philosopher whose ideas (or do I mean \"Ideas\"?) are, I believe, central\nto Wolfe's work.\n\nAn interesting comment on the significance of myth in general occurs on the\nnext page (p57), where Aladdin Blue explains the difference between history\nand myth:\n\n \"But the real difference is that the events that make up history are\nover and done with, while myth continues, circling our earth forever, like\nthe chariot of Helios.\"\n\nI suspect that Wolfe would probably categorise Biblical events as myths in\nthis sense (which is no comment on their historicity or otherwise), and\nthat's one reason why their patterns keep re-occuring in his novels, even\nwhen those novels are set in the distant future.\n\nAladdin Blue interprets Pandora's Box as, \"the part of the human brain\nthat's suppressed in the interests of society.\" That seems to give us the\nother part of the puzzle when it comes to grappling with the rationale\nbehind Wolfe's use of symbollism: the psychological. Myths deal with\narchetypes of human thought and behaviour. All very traditional, in fact,\nand fully in accord with ideas that were floating around in Classical\nthought, became highly fashionable in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance\nwith the \"Ovide Moralisee\" and the various psychomachias and\nallegorisations, and regained renewed impetus at the end of nineteenth\ncentury from the theories of Freude and Jung, when, for example, the myth of\nOedipus gained, shall we say, a new complexity...\n\nSo: the physical world as a reflection of divine reality, myths as the\nrecurring patterns whereby the physical world reflects that greater reality,\nand myths as symbollic statements of enduring psychological truths.\n\nExcellent! All grist to the Lupine literary critical mill....\n\nNigel\nMinety, Wiltshire\nEngland" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2001-08-20T11:40:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Barton, Barrington, and Pandora's Plato", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 01:52 PM 8/20/2001 +0100, Nigel wrote:\nI was also delighted to see that when (chapter 7, \"How War Came to Barton\",\np56 in the NEL paperback edition) Aladdin Blue explains the myth of Pandora\nto Holly at the book sale, he offers an explicitly Platonic interpretation:\n\n \"In the first place,\" Blue lectured, \"it's a commentary on Platonism -\nthe idea that each real thing is an imperfect attempt to duplicate an ideal\none. Epimetheus had made mankind like the gods, so the gods made Pandora\nlike a goddess. The Greeks were saying that real people are carricatures of\nideal people - their gods.\"\n\nNow, this is gold dust to me, because I've been asserting for some time that\nthe rationale behind Wolfe's use of symbolism is essentially Platonic,\nparticularly in The Book of the New Sun. I even pestered people (sorry,\nPotto) with questions about where they thought Wolfe got his Platonism\nfrom - primary or secondary sources? Here, at least, is a direct reference\nto a philosopher whose ideas (or do I mean \"Ideas\"?) are, I believe, central\nto Wolfe's work." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Well, considering Wolfe's study of ancient Greece for his \n\"Soldier\" series, it's not surprising that we get references to Plato and \nEpithemeus, and others, in his other works. But how central, I'm not sure. \nWolfe read his Aquinas as part of his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and \nindicated to me that Thomism is basically his outlook. That points more to \nAristotle than to Plato. Not that he can't have both, but how \"central\" is \nthe question." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "An interesting comment on the significance of myth in general occurs on the\nnext page (p57), where Aladdin Blue explains the difference between history\nand myth:\n\n \"But the real difference is that the events that make up history are\nover and done with, while myth continues, circling our earth forever, like\nthe chariot of Helios.\"\n\nI suspect that Wolfe would probably categorise Biblical events as myths in\nthis sense (which is no comment on their historicity or otherwise), and\nthat's one reason why their patterns keep re-occuring in his novels, even\nwhen those novels are set in the distant future." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " In theology this is called \"typology,\" that basic patterns recur \nin the course of linear history, which is really a spiral. Of course, here \nit becomes just a matter of terminology: what do we mean by \"myth\"?\n In Genesis 1, and following throughout the Bible, God creates \n\"heaven\" as an archetype of \"earth.\" The earth begins formless and empty, \nand moves toward the heavenly model progressively through typological \nspirals. That is, earth is gradually \"ouranified\" toward an eschaton. This \nis formally similar to Platonism and Aristotelianism (Plato: archetypes \nabove; Aristotle: archetypes embedded in the world). For that reason, \nChristians have often used platonic/aristotelian terminology, but invested \nit with more Biblical meanings.\n For this reason, I'd challenge the idea that the Book of the New \nSun is essentially Platonic in its construct. Plato's archetypes are mere \nideas, because an ideal chair, line, circle, person, cannot really \"exist.\" \nBiblical archetypes (i.e., the angelic realm) actually exist; just as a \nfather is an archetype for a son, a mother for a daughter, etc. Yesod and \nBriah exist much more like the Biblical heaven and earth than like Platonic \nforms and the world. Moreover, I don't think Yesod is more \"real\" than \nBriah, on some \"scale of being.\" It is just a higher plane in a created \nuniverse.\n Wolfe often uses \"pagan\" myths in his stories, as in Pandora. It \nis interesting to me that detective fiction is usually regarded as a rather \nuniquely \"Christian\" form of literature, in that human beings are \nresponsible (guilty) for what they do (contrast, say, Oedipus, fated by the \ngods), and in that history can be at least partially decyphered (i.e., the \ndetective can figure it out; as opposed to random chaos of events). For \nWolfe to put such mythic elements into a \"Christian\" literary frame is \npretty much what he always does.\n I think you are onto good stuff in how Wolfe uses myth in Pandora. \nI hope this provides a bit more grist for your own mill.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joshua A. Solomon", "address": "j.a.solomon at city.ac.uk" }, "date": "2001-08-21T13:56:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Barton, Barrington, and Pandora's Plato", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Nigel Price\" \nSubject: Barton, Barrington, and Pandora's Plato\nDate: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 13:52:25 +0100\n\nDo any list members live in or know the greater Chicago area well?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Holly states that Barton is \"a town of about 10,000\". Is that the size of\nthe real Barrington?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sounds right." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She also says that it's \"65 miles by car from the Loop.\"\nIs that\nthe real distance from Barrington to the city centre? It doesn't look that\nfar on my map - it looks more like 30 miles." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Barrington is about 30 miles from the Loop. All suburbanites use this\nmetric." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And, for the record, why is\nthat area of central Chicago called \"The Loop\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's encircled by The El. Don't ask me to define The El, for God's sake! :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Could she in real life have made the journey to Aurora by getting a train\ninto Chicago and then a Greyhound Bus out to Aurora?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Probably the only way to do it without a car." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How long would it have\ntaken her?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Several hours." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "OK, so when Holly is injured, she is taken to a hospital in a \"Palestine\",\nwhich she says is between \"Barton\" and Chicago. From the map, this would\nseem to be a reference to a place called Palatine, which is indeed between\nBarrington and Chicago." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For more on Palatine, see the Long Sun Series." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've got to the place in the book where the thick-set policeman, Lt Sandoz,\nmakes his appearance, ready to play Lestrade to Aladdin Blue's Holmes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been a long time since I read Pandora. Sandoz was famous for marketing\nLSD in the late '50s.\n\nbee" } ] } ] }