Subject: (urth) Re: race in Wolfe

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2002 12:29:49 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Andre-Driussi" <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
> >url: http://www.ultan.co.uk
>
> FWIW I read the essay and enjoyed it. It is mainly about things and issues
> surrounding Colonizer/Colonized, a reading of 5HC that addresses
> Colonialism. It starts off with a survey of what has been written over the
> years on this aspect of 5HC.  Using this to set the context, Wright then
> goes further than any have dared before.

Interesting.

I note one thing.  Wright casually uses the term "white" for coloniser, but
what is notable about  TFHOC is that the colonised "abos" such as Sandwalker
are very white physically.  ((If these are abos and not humans imitating
abos.))

Wolfe is in fact quite notable for making the poor and oppressed in his
books be specifically poor whites.

I do not mean that there are not occasional cameos by those of other
ethnicity, but that his books are relatively free from PC pantomimes of
ethnic white guilt.   It is usually whites who are the oppressed and
persecuted.

Has anyone given any seriouss thought to the treatment of race in Wolfe?

    hartshorn

--

---

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2002 19:34:40 +0000

>are very white physically.  ((If these are abos and not humans imitating

In a similar vein, I thought at first Wright was perhaps over-simplifying
by presenting two monolithic groups, colonizer and colonized.  After all,
we are certain that the colonizers include the Anglophones as well as the
Francophones; we have reason to believe that the colonized include Hill
People and Marshmen, if not even more diverse groups (the "trees"; the
Shadow Children).

Aside from the mimicry of colonizers by colonized (which is the bullseye of
5HC), on Earth we also have the reverse--the mimicry of colonized by
colonizers (tobacco, jazz music, etc.). Is there evidence of this in 5HC?

Then again, I also realize that simplification is often required to get
larger  points across, and in the end I thought the simplification was
justified for the purpose and length of the essay.

Another thing I wondered about was this: often it is the case that a reader
cannot determine what an essayist's favored reading is until the end of the
essay.  We cannot tell "where the litcritter is coming from," in other
words, until we piece together the clues after the essay is done.

In 5HC, for example, there are branches of the tree, for one example:
Veil's Hypothesis (+ [reading says "true"], 0 [reading says "maybe"], -
[reading says "false"]).

Depending on how a reading scores Veil's Hypothesis, certain later branches
open or close. If abos exist, can they change shape; etc. And is the
twin-planet system Eden, the original birthplace of homo sapiens sapiens?
(Although this comes earlier, in a sense.)

So in the end one would have a string of alpha-numerics, like those "geek
codes" you might see used by afficionados to signal their personal likes
and dislikes within the canon or category.

These Wolfe-codes could be used at the beginning of an essay or message to
provide introduction/deep context.

There would be a string like "AbaiaWin=+; AutarchySham=+;
SeverianAntichrist=+" which would mean a non-consensus reading where since
Abaia wins (with the flooding of Urth), and the Autarchy is a sham
puppetshow put on by agents of Yesod, then Severian is the antichrist.

The Wolfe-code system is just a wild and silly notion.

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

--