Subject: (urth) Cim Glowing

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 17:29:07 +0000

More "Tracking Song" thoughts, this time on Cim Glowing.

Though he risks his life to save Cim Glowing, Cutthroat may be making a
signally bad choice, since she is clearly allied against him. Cim Glowing,
as you will recall, is kidnapped by the minions of Mantru--the fat dwarf who
rules the underworld metal city and who Dis-like wants a Persephone bride.
If you accept that Mantru is Cutthroat's symbolic twin, this may make Cim
Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness")--the woman who, according to Biblical
tradition, is not only Cain's sister, but his wife. Notice too how Cutthroat
chooses "Wickedness" over continuing to chase after the Great Sleigh.

Cim Glowing has killed her previous boyfriend not once, but twice, implying
perhaps a cyclical event. It's therefore hard not to see Fishcatcher as the
Fisher King, and the snowbound world/postlapsarian Eden as the Wounded Land.
(Notice also how Fishcatcher is brought back to life by Great Sleigh
technology--the same technology that is attempting to bring spring to the
Wounded Land.) The father of Cim Glowing originally wanted to call her Seven
Snows--potent winter imagery to be sure--but her mother has named her Cim
Glowing when pops is away at parturition. "Cim" may refer to Cimmerian
(darkness) and "Glowing" to remnant radiation. Possible implication: nuclear
winter has decimated the planet of the animal tribes.

Cin Glowing also believes she will not be allowed to board the Great Sleigh,
which makes sense since she represents winter/death and the Great Sleigh
represents spring/renewal. But more insidiously still she attempts to
convince Cutthroat that he is not a left-behind member of the snowcraft.
Here she is indeed "wicked"--attempting to stop Cutthroat (who as a former
tiller of the soil understands the nature of a killing frost) from
rendezvousing with his people. Equally possible: she loves Cutthroat
(indeed, she says she does when she leaves him), but knows the two of them
can never be together if he achieves his goal.

Not that it matters. In the end, Cim Glowing elects to go her own
way--perhaps because unlike Cutthroat she understands that winged guardians
will not allow her to board the redemption-bringing, planet-saving, Great
Sleigh.

Robert Borski

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 17:39:33 +0000

These posts are fascinating ... I don't know if I "agree" with the
overall interpretation, but it makes a good pile o' sense.

One quibble:

> ... this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness") --
> the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only
> Cain's sister, but his wife. 

While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no 
trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the 
word -- full-text searches on both a King James and an NIV produced 
no trace of this. In fact, it's actually kind of a classic "stump 
the Bible expert" question to ask where Cain's wife came from, 
since the Bible doesn't say anything about it.

I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud?

--

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 17:48:58 +0000

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> word -- 

If the Bible says Adam and Eve were the parents of all humanity, and
Cain's wife was human...QED.

-Rostrum

--

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 17:54:55 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>

> overall interpretation, but it makes a good pile o' sense.

I do think they are fascinating, but I don't agree:

Or rather, I'd like to agree, but I am not (yet) convinced.   These old
stories have been selected for thousands of years by their "applicability"
in this fashion.   This memetic evolution is the source of their "deep
spiritual" meaning.

The only really positive factor is Cutthroat's mark - which has no purpose
for being other than as a Mark of Cain, or some such thing.

    hartshorn

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 18:23:11 +0000

Going down the list, ultimately Rostrum will have replied to 
all this ...

> Cain's wife was human...QED.

No, no ... my point is that there is no mention of an "Awan" at all.

--D

--

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 05:55:05 +0000

> I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud?

It's from the Book of Jubilees (Chapter 4: Verse 9):  "And in the sixth week
[Adam] begat his daughter Azura. And Cain took Awan his sister to be his
wife and she bare him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee. And in the
first year of the first week of the fifth jubilee, houses were built on the
earth, and Cain built a city, and called its name after the name of  his son
Enoch."

Azura, the other daughter, becomes the wife of Seth. It's from a suspect
source, I admit , but surely not all of the Pseudepigrapha are
tainted--especially Jubilees, which was allegedly written by the Lawgiver
himself.

Robert Borski

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:13:57 +0000

Apologies to those bored by such things...

> It's from the Book of Jubilees (Chapter 4: Verse 9):  

[quote deleted but fascinating]

> ... surely not all of the Pseudepigrapha are tainted --
> especially Jubilees, which was allegedly written by 
> the Lawgiver himself.

Well, that gets kind of problematic ... for example, we have 
a Gospel (really just a collection of kerygma) that was 
allegedly written by Thomas, but is clearly Gnostic in its 
content and rejected from the canon of every orthodox church. 
On the other feeler, there are books which are universally 
accepted by the churches and are of highly doubtful authorship,
such as some of the epistles traditionally attributed to Paul.

I've never read Jubilees, and don't know of any church, or 
synagogue, for that matter, which considers it to be canon 
(though it is cited in several of the canonical texts...); I 
thus claim that my basic statement above (that this is not a 
"biblical tradition") stands unaltered.

When you say it is attributed to "the Lawgiver," are you 
referring to Moses, or to the Deuteronomist, or ...

Ob.LupineContent: I've said it before, but I think that it's
more appropriate than ever here ... I think that YA of the 
many things several of Wolfe's books are "about" is an attempt 
to provide, in a non-Biblical context, an experience similar
to that of a Biblical exegete attempting to determine the 
historical facts lying behind a given text, divinely inspired
but written by one or more humans, edited and redacted by many
humans, transcribed and translated by humans ... any or all of 
whom may have not only inserted their own errors, but added or
suppressed matter suited to their own agendae ... all of this
guided by the assumption that the Holy Spirit, as the true 
Author, ensures that the truth the text is to convey (though 
not necessarily the historical facticity of the narrative 
content) is preserved incorrupt ... Wolfe stands in precisely 
this relation to his many fallible and unreliable narrators; 
what _Wolfe_ wishes to convey, is conveyed, however obscurely, 
despite -- and even because of! -- his narrators' varoius 
transformations, suppresisions, distortions, and occasional
outright lies.

--

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 06:10:50 +0000

> "biblical tradition") stands unaltered.

No argument there, and I should probably have used something a little more
qualitative like "according to non-canon tradition" or "according to the
Book of Jubilees" when I talked about the Qayin-Awan connection.

> referring to Moses, or to the Deuteronomist, or ...

To Moses, who supposedly received Jubilees as a revelation from the Angel of
the Presence.

Robert Borski

--