{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3465", "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": 3465, "subject": "Jonas <> Pinocchio", "messages": 7, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-09-25T20:17:53+00:00", "last": "2002-09-27T02:20:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-09-25T20:17:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jerry Friedman and Roy Lackey disagree with my casting Jonas as wanting to\nbecome fully bio. I guess I should have preped my statement with\nqualifiers, since while I believe \"Jonas Pinocchio\" is a possible reading,\nand may be required for some, I myself do not hold it too tightly,\npreferring Tin Man and Tin Soldier.\n\nSince I was responding to the posts of others, it seems I should have\nwritten something like \"Such a reading would seem to require that Jonas =\nPinocchio, whereas 98% of the time we talk of Jonas = Tin Man and/or Jonas\n= Steadfast Tin Soldier. OTOH, if Jonas = Pinocchio, then Miles represents\nhis wish come true, in contrast to Jonas = Tin Man, where Miles represents\nthe opposite of his wish, a cruel torment which is then furthered by the\nknowledge that Jolenta has already died.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry wrote:\nCan we\nimagine a prosthetic-bearing bio in love with a chem wanting to become\nfully a chem?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Putting aside the \"doing it for Love\" angle . . . Uh, would that be the\nhorde of boys who play at being robots? Represented in animation by Fry,\nthe 20th century guy in \"Futurama,\" who tells Bender he wanted a robot\nfriend (or to be a robot?) since he was five years old; and Fry has\nfantasies about being a robot? Andy Warhol's phrase \"I want to be a\nmachine\"? All the starry-eyed singularity adventists who long to be\n\"uploaded\"?\n\nThis is hard to imagine?\n\n(Jerry asked for the source of Steadfast Tin Soldier: Hans Christian Andersen.)\n\nBut then Roy goes further, into his \"lusty robot\" kick:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All the more reason to wonder what he wanted with Jolenta." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, Roy, you seem to be saying that Love is impossible without, er,\ncompatible sexual interface devices. I mentioned this before, I don't\nrecall that you answered: Is Love impossible for Jonas because he is a\nrobot, or is it impossible because his beloved is a bio, or is non-sexual\nLove simply impossible?\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-09-25T21:13:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\nJerry Friedman and Roy Lackey disagree with my casting Jonas as wanting\nto\nbecome fully bio. I guess I should have preped my statement with\nqualifiers, since while I believe \"Jonas Pinocchio\" is a possible\nreading,\nand may be required for some, I myself do not hold it too tightly,\npreferring Tin Man and Tin Soldier.\n\nSince I was responding to the posts of others, it seems I should have\nwritten something like \"Such a reading would seem to require that Jonas\n=\nPinocchio, whereas 98% of the time we talk of Jonas = Tin Man and/or\nJonas\n= Steadfast Tin Soldier. OTOH, if Jonas = Pinocchio, then Miles\nrepresents\nhis wish come true, in contrast to Jonas = Tin Man, where Miles\nrepresents\nthe opposite of his wish, a cruel torment which is then furthered by the\nknowledge that Jolenta has already died.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I like that version better, although my version wouldn't say that\nJonas equaled any other literary character. Maybe a matter of taste\nin interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Can we\nimagine a prosthetic-bearing bio in love with a chem wanting to become\nfully a chem?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Putting aside the \"doing it for Love\" angle . . . Uh, would that be the\nhorde of boys who play at being robots? Represented in animation by\nFry,\nthe 20th century guy in \"Futurama,\" who tells Bender he wanted a robot\nfriend (or to be a robot?) since he was five years old; and Fry has\nfantasies about being a robot? Andy Warhol's phrase \"I want to be a\nmachine\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's a big difference between fantasizing and going to a surgeon.\n\nIn one sense, I have to agree with you, since I gather there are\npeople who have limbs amputated for sexual reasons. (Cf. another sf\nWolfe.) Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's got to\nbe the very very tail of the bell curve. As Roy pointed out, Jonas\nhasn't always wanted to be biological--far from it--so I really can't\nsee him wanting something so drastic to get closer to Jolenta." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All the starry-eyed singularity adventists who long to be\n\"uploaded\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whole different thing. As far as I can tell, they imagine it's going\nto be like being a bio human, only better, or like being a demigod." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is hard to imagine?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Still." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Jerry asked for the source of Steadfast Tin Soldier: Hans Christian\nAndersen.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks! I'll check it out. Andersen was a very small part of my\nchildhood." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But then Roy goes further, into his \"lusty robot\" kick:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All the more reason to wonder what he wanted with Jolenta." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, Roy, you seem to be saying that Love is impossible without, er,\ncompatible sexual interface devices. I mentioned this before, I don't\nrecall that you answered: Is Love impossible for Jonas because he is a\nrobot, or is it impossible because his beloved is a bio, or is\nnon-sexual\nLove simply impossible?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here I agree with you even if I have to disagree with Roy. ObNewSun:\nthe bit where Severian mentions women who desire (love?) men who are\nimpotent save with men like themselves, and men who desire women whose\nlegs are locked with paralysis. I don't remember whether the context\nof this had to do with Jonas and Jolenta.\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-09-26T02:36:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maybe a little background on the Tin Woodman, for those who are familiar\nmainly with the movie or the first book only. We know that Wolfe knows the\nBaum books well, through \"Eyeflash\" and references elsewhere. Baum wrote 13\nbooks in this series (and it was continued by other writers, but that is\nirrelevant). Among them was -The Tin Woodman of Oz-., which recounts the\nstory of the TW (Nick Chopper) and his brother, the Tin Soldier (Captain\nFyter), and which I think influenced Wolfe without the least doubt, when he\nconceived of Jonas. ((I think he intended the reference to be humorously\npicked up by those in the know.)\n\nBoth brothers were in love with a girl named Nimmie Amee who had rather a\nthing for metal.As various body parts were chopped off or blown away and\nreplaced with tin by Ku-Klip the Tinsmith she was more and more attracted.\nBoth men liked their new bodies too, as they gradually became more and more\nartificial: \"brilliant and durable\" (TW 207) and \"a great improvement on\ntheir meat bodies\" (223). Ku-Klip made a Frankensteinian monster-man\n(Chopfyt) of the brothers' cast-off parts, but he was not a\nsuccess--awkward, whiny and always hungry. At any rate, the brothers, who\nhad each been incapicitated by rust long enough to lose track of Nimmie\nAmee, go off to find her to ask her to choose between them and find that she\nis married--to whom? To Chopfyt, of course--Ku-Klip had given him one tin\narm, which excited her fetish. And she thinks she'll keep him, since she has\nspent a good deal of time training him to be a good husband. This is rather\nan amusing scene.\n\nThe point, re Jonas, is that both brothers are extremely grateful to be made\nentirely of metal (each had gone through a period where they were part tin,\npart meat), and look down on Chopfyt, made of their old parts.\n\nAlso, just for fun, you should look up Terry Bisson's short-short \"They're\nMade Out of Meat\" on the web--it's been illegally copied everywhere (almost\nliterally) and there is an amusing illustrated version at Seeing Eye\nTheater.\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-09-26T06:36:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nBut then Roy goes further, into his \"lusty robot\" kick:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All the more reason to wonder what he wanted with Jolenta." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, Roy, you seem to be saying that Love is impossible without, er,\ncompatible sexual interface devices. I mentioned this before, I don't\nrecall that you answered: Is Love impossible for Jonas because he is a\nrobot, or is it impossible because his beloved is a bio, or is non-sexual\nLove simply impossible?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The answer to both of the first two questions is: yes, for the obvious lack\nof \"compatible sexual interface devices\", but it is the third question, I\nbelieve, that most concerns you, and others. For me, the third question\ndoesn't even arise with regard to Jonas and Jolenta.\n\nWhat you are calling \"Love\" was not Love; it was unadulterated Lust, as far\nas Jonas is concerned. Neither is even an issue for Jolenta; she wouldn't\nlook at him twice, even if he paid her. She felt nothing at all for him.\n\nJolenta was an artificially enhanced, stereotypical sexpot--and nothing\nmore. She was, with the glamour cast on her by Talos, literally the most\ndesirable woman on the planet. By design, no man could resist her sexual\nallure. Jonas, perhaps because of his biological replacement parts, proved\nno exception.\n\nJonas laid eyes on Jolenta exactly twice in his life. The second time was\njust after he and Sev had been captured on the grounds of the House\nAbsolute. He caught sight of her, started to call her name, and was knocked\nsenseless before he finished the first syllable. That was all that happened,\nand the last time he saw her. The first time he saw her was on the road just\noutside the Piteous Gate. Jolenta was afraid of the imposing gate and moved\nclose to Talos for protection. When he ignored her, she then took the\nstirrup strap of Jonas's merychip. Her \"fear made her press the side of one\nfull breast against the thigh of the man on the merychip\". It was Lust at\nfirst touch, as well as at first sight. He made a passing query to Talos\nabout \"why this lady, the loveliest I've ever seen, is walking in the dust\".\nJolenta took offence, rebuked him in two sentences, and moved away. Jonas\nblushed. Then he started to tell his \"bean\" story, was interrupted by Talos,\nthen said to Jolenta, \"May I continue, most marvelous of women?\" That single\nquestion was the only thing he ever said to her in his life. Her\ntwo-sentence rebuke, above, was the only thing she ever said to him. What I\nhave related in this paragraph is a summation of the entirety of their\nrelationship.\n\nThere was, in effect, _no_ relationship between Jonas and Jolenta outside of\nJonas's head. There was no basis in their common history for even a Platonic\nrelationship, none at all. Jonas, illogical as it may be for an android,\nlusted after Jolenta just as Sev and every other man who saw her did, and\nthat's all it was. Lust, not Love.\n\nEven Sev recognized it. Just before Jonas was knocked senseless, he wrote:\n\"When Jolenta was nearly opposite us, she turned her head. To me, at that\nmoment, it seemed she must have winded his desire, as among the mountains\ncertain unclean spirits are said to be attracted by the odor of meat that\nhas been cast upon a fire for them.\" (II, chap. 14)\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-09-26T18:43:03+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Regarding Alga's background on the Tin Woodman:\n\nOk. Now I have brand new interest in the sequels to \"The Wizard of Oz\", but\nI still don't see more than a superficial connection to Jonas. Jolenta was\n\"in love\" with a man who was *entirely* synthetic...ah! Perhaps you're\nsaying she was in love with Baldanders \"right-arm man\"! Nice flag, that\nlinks Jolenta to Nimmie Amee. But still, she was rejected by him. And she\nnever loved his artificiality. If Baldanders or Jonas would or could have\nmaintained her beauty products she would have loved either of them as much.\n\nBut the big thing is that ...Jonas *becomes* human, right? He doesn't repair\nthe robot parts. He repairs the human prosthetics to the point of growing a\nwhole body. He becomes the human Miles. This surely was his intent when\ngoing to be \"repaired\". Is it not generally agreed that Jonas left Severian\nand became Miles? I searched the list on this and didn't find anything to\nthe contrary.\n\nThe Tin Woodman may have been an *inspiration* to Wolfe's images of\nsynthetic people, but can the connection be drawn any more tightly?\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-09-26T19:42:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But the big thing is that ...Jonas *becomes* human, right? He doesn't\nrepair\nthe robot parts. He repairs the human prosthetics to the point of growing a\nwhole body. He becomes the human Miles. This surely was his intent when\ngoing to be \"repaired\". Is it not generally agreed that Jonas left Severian\nand became Miles? I searched the list on this and didn't find anything to\nthe contrary." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, I don't think there is general agreement on that point. On 9/6/02 mantis\nwrote:\n\n------------------------\nJonas steps into the mirrors after speaking of being repaired. When next\nwe see him, he is fully biological. I have often speculated that in Yesod\nhis biological prosthetics were expanded into a full biological body into\nwhich the Jonas-software was integrated . . . along with the biological\nsoftware that was present-yet-dormant in the prosthetics, now full-blown in\nthe reconstructed bio body.\n\n(A somewhat cleaner version is that the Jonas-spirit was drawn from Yesod\nby the Claw to ride the body of the annonymous dead soldier.)\n\nIn any event, two personalities in one body.\n------------------------\n\nAs I argued in an earlier post, Jonas hoped to be repaired so as to return\nto his original android state, not become a bio. So I prefer the \"cleaner\nversion\" mantis outlined above. He expanded on it yesterday:\n\n-------------------------\nI guess it all resolves this way:\nsince Severian heard the utterance and saw Jonas go into the mirror, the\nClaw heard it too, so that later on at that point in Severian's life when\nhe really needed a friend, yet all there was at hand was a corpse, then the\nClaw drew down the Jonas software from the borderland between Briah and\nYesod, installed it in the reanimated corpse, and thereby solved two wishes\nwith one snappy miracle.\n-------------------------\n\n\nI don't think there was _anything_ of Jonas in that dead soldier before Sev,\nin his fevered delirium, put it there.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-09-27T02:20:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush cried:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Regarding Alga's background on the Tin Woodman:\n\nOk. Now I have brand new interest in the sequels to \"The Wizard of Oz\",\nbut\nI still don't see more than a superficial connection to Jonas. Jolenta was\n\"in love\" with a man who was *entirely* synthetic...ah! Perhaps you're\nsaying she was in love with Baldanders \"right-arm man\"! Nice flag, that\nlinks Jolenta to Nimmie Amee. But still, she was rejected by him. And she\nnever loved his artificiality. If Baldanders or Jonas would or could have\nmaintained her beauty products she would have loved either of them as\nmuch.\n\nBut the big thing is that ...Jonas *becomes* human, right? He doesn't\nrepair\nthe robot parts. He repairs the human prosthetics to the point of growing\na\nwhole body. He becomes the human Miles. This surely was his intent when\ngoing to be \"repaired\". Is it not generally agreed that Jonas left\nSeverian\nand became Miles? I searched the list on this and didn't find anything to\nthe contrary.\n\nThe Tin Woodman may have been an *inspiration* to Wolfe's images of\nsynthetic people, but can the connection be drawn any more tightly?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think it's tight. But consider an author's thinking: A Tin Soldier\n(and I think he *was* thinking of Andersen's tin soldier too, thank you,\nmantis). What about a Tin Sailor? The Baum Tin Soldier likes being Tin more\nthan meat--so will my Tin Sailor--but we'll reverse the process of repair. A\nTin Soldier in love? My Tin Sailor will be too, but of course with the most\nartificial woman he can possibly find (Anderson's soldier loved a paper\ndoll--make of that what you will). And that, in a curious writerly way,\nleads to the invention of Jolenta who is created by another metal man (the\noriginal mythical Talos was made of bronze). If you think about it, Jolenta\ndoesn't have an important plot role, though GW has given her some nice small\nscenes; my guess is that he conceived her after dreaming up Jonas and\ndeveloped her role after that to make some points about Talos and Sev,\nkilling her off fairly quickly. Sev thinks she might have been in love with\nTalos--like Nimmie Amee, attracted to metal. So perhaps Talos was the\ntrigger--but I think Jonas\n\nNow we don't know for sure about the Miles identification--I wouldn't make\ntoo much of that. Unless you have a really good theory about Inire's\nmirrors.Or Sev's projections.\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }