{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4069", "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": 4069, "subject": "never the Twain shall meet Lafferty nor Davies", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-07-08T20:32:20+00:00", "last": "2003-07-08T22:32:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2003-07-08T20:32:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) never the Twain shall meet Lafferty nor Davies", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alga, she wrote:\nThe miracle of Apu-Punchau was an eclipse. Or a supposed eclipse; actually,\nas Wolfe makes (almost) clear in his afterword, it was the very large\nstarship Sanru passing across the sun. This \"miracle\" echoes the one in Mark\nTwain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--which was a genuine\neclipse. Wolfe is not so crass as to copy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(She means \"Tzadkiel,\" not \"Samru.\")\n\nWhat ho! And Twain echoed, iirc, none other than Christopher Columbus --\nwho might not have gotten such great reviews, but most likely had the\ngreater historical impact. \n\nI would like to point out that after Severian benefits from the \"eclipse\ntrick,\" he has to pay -- they believe he is a solar god and they do not\nwant him to leave them, ever. When he tries to walk away, they follow and\nbring him back. Finally they strangle him. Now there is a logical\nconsequence that Columbus and Twain never had to deal with!\n\nWell hey, I recently read Lafferty's novel ALARIC (aka THE FALL OF ROME\n[1971]), and I must say it puts me in a mind about Severian's narrative!\n(I had some difficulty in getting started, getting used to the form, but\nonce in, I found it quite compelling.) In Alaric we have a strapping fellow\nbred, groomed, and gimmicked into being a national hero/holy emperor type,\na man bent on saving the Roman Empire yet known to (bitchy?) history as its\ndestroyer. Third person, with lots of faction-action, so it is something\nlike Herbert's DUNE, in that way, and chock full of all sorts of wild\ndetails about the ancient world. Plus Alaric, in addition to having a\nmother/sister/wife (who is a chief architect of the hero), has all these\npowerful \"brothers.\" Lafferty says that the ruling class of the blond\ngoths was a group that was red-headed and brunette, and very tall in\nstature; that this ruler group was a relatively recent refugee party from\nthe Mediterranean; that this group was creating Norse mythology from Gothic\ntales blended with international fairy tales; and most cryptically, that\ntheir original homeland was in the area of Sicily/North Africa (i.e., they\nmust be Carthaginians, but he is very careful not to say that).\n\nBefore that I read fiction by Robertson Davies for the first time, his\nnovel FIFTH BUSINESS. Many years ago, in another country, I'd lent a\nfriend a copy of PEACE and after he read it he said it reminded him of\nFIFTH BUSINESS. And there is a certain amount of congruence: if we factor\nout the SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE aspects of PEACE, the similarities are even\nmore clear. The village life; the childhood rivalries; the historical\nevents of early 20th century; seductive circus women; mysterious magic. It\nis almost as if PEACE is a case where the hero never leaves the village, as\nopposed to FIFTH BUSINESS where the hero leaves but is still bound in\nstrange ways.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Prucher", "address": "jprucher at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2003-07-08T22:32:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) never the Twain shall meet Lafferty nor Davies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis writes: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Before that I read fiction by Robertson Davies for the first time, his\nnovel FIFTH BUSINESS. Many years ago, in another country, I'd lent a\nfriend a copy of PEACE and after he read it he said it reminded him of\nFIFTH BUSINESS. And there is a certain amount of congruence: if we factor\nout the SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE aspects of PEACE, the similarities are even\nmore clear. The village life; the childhood rivalries; the historical\nevents of early 20th century; seductive circus women; mysterious magic. It\nis almost as if PEACE is a case where the hero never leaves the village, as\nopposed to FIFTH BUSINESS where the hero leaves but is still bound in\nstrange ways." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This reminds me of another Davies-Wolfe confluence that I don't think has been\nmentioned here. In WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE (I'm pretty sure I have the right\ntitle: I'm thinking of the middle book of the Cornish Trilogy), Davies invokes\nan angel named the Lesser Tzadkiel, who is the angel in charge of biography.\nThe Lesser Tzadkiel has the ability to record all the events of a person's life\n(the book, if I recall correctly, consists largely of the angel playing back\nthe entirety of one man's life), which is what Severian's memory does. It's\nprobably no more than a coincidence, but it always struck me as being\nappropriate that Severian should be associated with the angel of biography.\n\n-Jeff" } ] } ] }