{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3114",
    "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": 3114,
    "subject": "Crowley's The Translator (SPOILERS)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-03-31T15:22:39+00:00",
    "last": "2002-03-31T15:22:39+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0203-522@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-03-31T15:22:39+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Crowley's The Translator (SPOILERS)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Big spoilers, so don't read this if you haven't finished the book."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "on 3/29/02 10:11 AM, Russell Wodell at hse at telus.net wrote:\nNotes from a first reading:\n\n1. The source seems to be Auden's famous quote that poets are the\nunacknowledged legislators of reality. Here, this seems to be interpreted as\npoet=saint or poet=angel."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The quote is alluded to on p. 294."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "2. Crowley seems to be saying that the peaceful resolution of the Cuban\nMissile Crisis was a literal miracle. Exactly how an exiled Russian poet\ncould prevent nuclear war is left as teasingly unclear as the actions of the\nfairies in \"Little, Big.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is what I originally thought was going on, too.  But thinking it over,\nI'm skeptical.  It doesn't account for the intrigue surrounding Kit.  Jackie\nsuggests that Bluhdorn \"recruited her\" to show Falin \"that they asked about\nhim.  That they can get to people he knows and ask them\" (205), but this\ndoesn't hold water: of course they can \"get to\" Falin's\nacquaintances--they're the U.S. government; and Falin, with his background\nin a police state, undoubtedly assumes they are doing so anyway.  Nor does\nit account for Falin warning Kit away for her own good: if he's decided to\nsacrifice himself, why should this endanger Kit?  And it doesn't account for\nthe hints, which don't come only from Bluhdorn and are never refuted, that\nFalin has worked, or is working, for the KGB.\n\nOn a literal level, this is what I believe happened: Falin is working for\nthe KGB, just as the U.S. government suspects.  In the passage \"'Hardest\nthing,' he said, not to her.  'Is not suffering.  Much harder is to remember\nwhat you did to avoid suffering.  What you were willing to do.  This cannot\nbe erased.'\" (252), this is what Falin's talking about: he's remembering\nwhat he has done, not posing a hypothetical situation.  Bluhdorn harasses\nKit to squeeze Falin.  And it works: to save Kit, Falin agrees to cooperate\nwith the U.S. government.  But the KGB learns this, intercepts him on his\nway, kills him and takes his poems (which Falin may have expected).\n\nFalin does hint to Kit that he is sacrificing himself to prevent nuclear\nwar.  The question then is, is he just saying this to Kit to comfort her?\nOr does he believe that on some level he is indeed doing this (in addition\nto sacrificing himself to save Kit).  And if the latter, is it true?  I\ndon't know.  The final possibility would be the most \"Crowleyesque,\" but the\nbook as a whole is not Crowleyesque, and in his LOCUS interview Crowley says\nhe knows that the world really isn't the way he presents it in LITTLE, BIG\nand the AEGYPT books.  His remarks about THE TRANSLATOR itself do seem to\nhint that the final possibility is true, but I don't think they're\ndefinitive (and if it wasn't true, I don't think Crowley would say so\nopenly: it would be something for readers to figure out)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "3. The poetic concept that each nation has two opposing angels seems to be\nmeant literally as well -- but Crowley is a recovering Catholic and is\ndeeply ambiguous about this."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "On a mundane level, the \"lesser angels\" are simply poets: \"he shivers and\nsings/And there is no reproach so stinging as his smile.\" (137)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "There are several candidates for America's dark angel."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think that America's \"greater angel\" is a dark angel, if not so dark as\nRussia's.  Certainly the portrayal of the U.S. government is unflattering;\nand it almost brought about nuclear war."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "4. The hostile NY Times review complained that Crowley's invented Russian\npoetry was awful. I strongly disagree: I found it moving and much more\nauthentic than, say D.M. Thomas's similar efforts in his novels (though his\ntranslations of actual poetry are sometime marvellous)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I haven't seen this review yet (was it in the NYTBR, or in the daily paper?)\nbut I agree with you (though I haven't read any D.M. Thomas).\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}