{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2893",
    "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": 2893,
    "subject": "random thoughts: aldiss / pandora / short sun",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-01-29T22:59:20+00:00",
    "last": "2002-01-29T22:59:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-7@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-01-29T22:59:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) random thoughts: aldiss / pandora / short sun",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "A while ago someone mentioned that Aldiss and Wolfe may harbor some \nunconscious ill will for each other, especially in light of Aldiss' \ncharacterization of The Book of the New Sun in Trillion Year Spree.  Recently, \nWolfe recommended \"Report on Probability A\" to me, but stated \"I normally \ndon't like Aldiss.\"  I think that can be taken a couple of ways.\n\nAlso, as I've written to Mr. Borski a few times since the list has been down, \nI've been looking at Pandora (the most abused of Wolfe's works) again.  There \nare a lot of German people running around: Larry Lief, the man who is killed; \nBill Hake, H. Hollander's servant; and a few others.  Lief means run, Hake \nmeans hook.  Interestingly enough, a bill hook is a scimitar.  In light of the \nmyth of Aladdin in which a man pretends to be Alladin's uncle to get the lamp \n(kind of like \"Uncle\" Sinclair uses Aladdin Blue to find books to sell to Mr. \nHollander), I am proposing that something dubious is going on with Uncle \nSinclair, whose demise is reported in the introduction of the book.  \nAdditionally, Holly herself seems to love to emphasize with italics and I am \ntrying to come up with a cogent assimilation of all italics in the book.  The \ntwo men who hang out with Aladdin correspond nicely to the genie of the ring \nand the genie of the lamp that Aladdin has in the traditional myth.  I'm not \nsure where to overlay the two myths; are the Hollander brothers Epimetheus and \nPrometheus, or are they like the evil brothers from the Aladdin myth who \nalmost destroy Aladdin?  There are a ton of German artifacts in Hollander's \nhouse: a german special forces knife, a special police Walter pistol, the \ngerman cartridge that supposedly causes the explosion, and a german servant in \nthe form of Bill Hake who is the only one with Mrs. HOllander when she goes to \npick up Pandora's box.  I would like to think of Bill Hake as a weapon of \ndestruction, but I haven't found the \"key\" to this novel; I'm not sure there \nis one. (also, check out the scenes where Holly and her mother interact: they \nare the only indications we get that Holly smokes and how rebellious she is - \nalso, she says the oil that Lief's family sells is a great cover up for pot - \nyet she says she won't tell us about the first time she tried pot.  I think \nLief's death is a good cover up for something - but I don't know if \noveranalyzing Pandora is a good idea.)\n\nOn another note, has anybody come up with a plausible description for the \ninscription on the white ring that Horn and Silk use in The Book of the Short \nSun?  If I re-read those books again anytime soon I'll try to pay attention to \nit.  Anybody figured out why Beroep is so \"poor\"?  Or who that dude with the \ncolorless cape is on the moon ... (I mean, Green).\n\nEverybody knows Douglas Adams died last year, right?  I just saw that on the \ninternet last week and I was pretty surprised.  He was kind of young (I'm not \nsure if many people who enjoy Wolfe's work would like Adams, but he was \ncertainly funny - I liked his books when I was younger.)\n\nI don't know if I posted these ideas to the general lists, but I came up with \na plausible excuse for the eucharistic ceremonies in In Green's Jungles and \nReturn to the Whorl.  If you buy that the trees are eating people and \nrecombining with their DNA, then a transubstantiation is going on that mirrors \nthe Catholic belief that wine (made from grapes) and bread ACTUALLY become \nblood and flesh (as opposed to the consubstantiation of many protestant \nreligions in which symbolic resonance supersedes actual changes in matter).  \nThis occurs when he is in the forest and he feels the trees watching him, and \nwhen he is with Olivine on the Whorl.  In her case, we have seen how her \nmother was able to incorporate some of Maytera Rose's soul with her parts, \nanother kind of transubstantiation (vegetable to human to mechanical ... \nstrange, huh?)  I think there was more to the gesture than just the direct \nevokation of an overtly Christian and Catholic ceremony.  I'm sure I've \nalready shared that with Mr. Borski, Mr. Jordan, and Mr. Robertson.\n\nI hope everyone is doing ok, I'm glad the list is back up.\n\nMarc Aramini\n\n\nQuestions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}