{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4522",
    "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": 4522,
    "subject": "Love & Courage",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2005-12-06T03:26:10+00:00",
    "last": "2005-12-06T03:26:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<200512060326.jB63QDVf090301@mailserver3.hushmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com",
        "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-12-06T03:26:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Love & Courage",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It seems to me that themes running through Wolfe's later works have \nmuch to do with these two qualities. It would probably be more \nexact to say \"the positive attributes of Aphrodite/Venus\" and \"the \nditto of Ares/Mars\", except that Wolfe does not see them as \nessentially female and male, although their anthropomorphized \naspects may take genedered forms. \n\nWolfe, I believe, sees a kind of alchemical marriage between the \ntwo as the route to transcendance or whatever you want to call it. \nThe transcendant Neighbors advertise their \"married\" state by their \ntwinned forms, with the obvious nod to the Symposium. (Recall the \nfrustratingly interesting question posed to Jahlee by the inhumu \nwho has pursued Silkhorn to her mountain top: \"Is this your male \nhalf, oh Misted One?\" - or words to that effect.)\n\nSome of his human protegonists suffer from a lack of balance \nbetween the two, which gets resolved one way or another as the \ncharacter develops. Silk's Love-aspect, for example, overshadows \nhis (nevertheless substantial) Courage-aspect, most obviously in \nhis obsession with Hyacinth. Horn goes the other way, his Courage \nfar outstripping his Love. Fused and balanced in SilkHorn, they \nachieve a joint transcendance.\n\nAs a Wolfean hero, it's interesting that Able is not a compound (in \nfact, he's more of a split; Able and Art). His development is from \nadolescence to adulthood, rather than as a fusion of complements. \nObviously, he's Courage-dominated in the way of adolescent males - \nhis love for Dsiri starts as adolescent eroticsm and infatuation, \nvery strong but very crude. By the end of the story, of course, his \nLove-aspect has developed into the Real Thing, and he's ready to \nascend through the higher spheres. \n\n(Dsiri, of course, develops also: to start with, fickle; by the \nend, surely not. And surely timorous to start with, and in the end \na valiant warrior.)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}