{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4002", "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": 4002, "subject": "Flying fish", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-05-13T01:05:10+00:00", "last": "2003-05-13T11:52:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.aprice at virgin.net" }, "date": "2003-05-13T01:05:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Flying fish", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks to Che Monro, Fernando Gouvea and John Barach for the alternative\ntakes on the ending to \"The Tree is My Hat\" and the meaning of the story's\ntitle.\n\nIntrigued, I listened again to end of the story in the audio version. It\ngoes like this:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "An engine has quit. Pilot says, “No danger.”\n\nHe is out there, swimming beside the plane.\nI watch him. I don’t know…He’s disappeared,\ndisappeared into a thunderhead.\n\nThe tree is my hat.\n\nOh god, oh my god, my blood brother, what can I do?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is this the same as the written version? The audio version seems to end very\nsuddenly immediately after this.\n\n\"Beside the plane\" is a bit ambiguous. I'd interpreted it as meaning that\nBaden could see the shark in the clear water below the low flying plane. But\nthe interpretation that the shark is actually flying through the air is also\nperfectly possible, and given that Baden has seen the shark-like UFO, well,\nyes, he could be seeing the UFO-which-is-really-the-shark. And given that\nhe's possessed by the shark spirit, yes, he could indeed be seeing his own\nreflection.\n\nThere's even the possibility that the shadow of the aircraft itself might\nlook like that of the shark. You remember that business referred to in the\nquotation I gave from _Myths and Legends of the South Seas_ about the bodies\nof dead chiefs being encased in wooden fish and floated out to sea where\nthey are then eaten by a shark? The example quoted is of a wooden swordfish,\nbut other types of wooden fish were also used. In the Solomon Islands, for\nexample, they put the bodies inside a wooden shark. (Picture on p56-57 of\nM&LotSS.) Baden is in a shark-like aircraft, being flown out to sea. In\nother words, he's a dead man, and the shark is waiting.\n\nThe line, \"He’s disappeared, disappeared into a thunderhead.\" would fit in\nwell with the idea of the shark flying alongside Baden's aircraft, but\nwouldn't necessarily discredit the other interpretations, or perhaps\n\"visualisations\" is a better word, as I don't think that we're in any\nsubstantial disagreement as to what is going on. I have the distinct\nimpression that we're supposed to assume that \"He's disappeared into a\nthunderhead\" is supposed to indicate that the thunderhead itself is malign\nand manipulated by Hanga. Hange has entered the thunderhead. He may even\nhave \"turned into\" the thunderhead.\n\nThe whole logic and momentum of the story seems to indicate that it's a tale\nof damnation - a horror story, a tragedy. Even so, the meaning of the final\nlines remain potentially ambiguous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The tree is my hat.\n\nOh god, oh my god, my blood brother, what can I do?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It all depends which \"god\" Baden is praying to. Is it \"god\" or \"God\" in the\nprinted version? We know that Baden has become Hanga's blood brother, so the\nlogical thing is to assume that he's talking to the evil Hanga, who is about\nto \"devour\" him. But what if Baden really did come to his senses in the\nmiddle of the attack on his family and cut off his own right hand? Could he\neven at this late stage be remembering the rejected saviour who shed his\nblood for him and called his disciples his brothers?\n\nNo, my reading is that there is no last minute repentance, but it's\ninteresting to see that it still remains an outside possibility!\n\nAs for Hanga being the island...Hmmmmm. Interesting! In terms of scale, the\ntree is a very small hat for a whole island, while it makes a perfectly\nadmirable one for a body buried at its roots. Unless we assume some sort of\npoetic \"one for the many\" trope, it would be more natural for the island to\nsay, \"the forest is my hat.\" No, while I can't rule out the island theory\ncompletely, I still find the more natural explanation to be for Hanga to be\na body under a tree. He's a white dwarf with sharp teeth on land, a\nhammerhead shark in the sea, and a shark-like UFO in the air.\n\nThen again, we all know about Wolfe and islands. Is this story yet another\npart of the Wolfe archipelago? Rob is the missionary doctory of\ndeath-by-shark island?\n\nNigel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Che Monro", "address": "flirt at technologist.com" }, "date": "2003-05-13T11:52:29+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Flying fish", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then again, we all know about Wolfe and islands. Is this story yet another\npart of the Wolfe archipelago? Rob is the missionary doctory of\ndeath-by-shark island?\n\nNigel" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*laughs* Oh dear!\n\nI find this story interesting because it's a study of the primitive \nGod/Devil. Hanga is both a God and a Demon, capable of friendship, and \nquite possibly the bestowal of magical powers, and also the destroyer.\n\nYou hurt me, Hanga, when you attack my friends and family you hurt me! I \nwonder if Hanga was feeling a bit jealous and lonely? Perhaps Wolfe could \nhave developed this story a bit further, usually in the bible - the story \nof David, for instance - the plot that leads a man into conflict with his \nGod are more intricate and involved. Although this does have all the \nclassic elements.\n\nAnd Mary... \"He was such a handsome man\"... \"I could tell from the their \nexpressions that something was wrong...\" Did Mary commit adultry with \nHanga? Even if only in thought?\n\nUm, if so then I bet there is some hint in the scene at North Point.\n\nChe\n\nChé Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com\nche at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com" } ] } ] }