{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4836", "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": 4836, "subject": "“Tracking Song” (and other stories)", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2007-06-05T22:44:01+00:00", "last": "2007-06-18T00:14:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<39ed084f0706051544r5def1eecw82e3994885c7d4c5@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew Groves", "address": "matthewalangroves at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-06-05T22:44:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) “Tracking Song” (and other stories)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Tracking Song\" questions\n\nI've recently read \"Tracking Song\" (_The Island of Doctor Death and\nOther Stories and Other Stories_), along with Borski's blurb in _The\nLong and Short of It_ and an enlightening discussion in the old\narchives (does Alice \"alga\" Turner still subscribe?), and I wanted to\nthrow out a few questions in hope of stimulating some discussion.\n\nLike Latro, Cutthroat is (literally) a little dog lost. What happened\nto Cutthroat's memory? No head wound. Psychological fugue? Or\nsomehow part of his punishment -- exile even in memory?\n\nWhat happened to Ketin's son? The off-handness of Red Kluy's\nstatement (\"[Y]ou should see Ketin. They used to have a son, but he's\ngone away.\") makes it seem like Wolfe is being sly and the statement\nis significant.\n\nWolfe's underworld type-scene: Where does it come from, and what is\nits significance? We have it in \"Tracking Song\" (with the Min), in\nthe mine at Saltus in BotNS (with the ape men), in \"The Eyeflash\nMiracles\" (Little Tib dreams of a cave with gnomes and a Gnome King.\nHere, the reference is also to Munchkinland from _The Wizard of Oz_,\nbut they are in a *cave*, and the Gnome King made me think of Mantru\nfrom \"Tracking Song\".) I'm sure shows up in other places I haven't\nnoticed or don't remember.\n\nWhat's up with Roller, Dragon, and Bug? The names have to mean something.\n\nWhy does the number fourteen seem significant to Cutthroat? (After he\nrecords the fourteenth day's log, Cim leaves her recorded parting\nmessage to him, which he apparently never listens to.)\n\nAny thoughts on these?\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000c01c7a99d$d7e1af40$a0c85a42@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2007-06-08T07:22:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth)“Tracking Song” (and other stories)", "in_reply_to": "<39ed084f0706051544r5def1eecw82e3994885c7d4c5@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Matthew Groves wrote:\nI've recently read \"Tracking Song\" (_The Island of Doctor Death and\nOther Stories and Other Stories_), along with Borski's blurb in _The\nLong and Short of It_ and an enlightening discussion in the old\narchives (does Alice \"alga\" Turner still subscribe?), and I wanted to\nthrow out a few questions in hope of stimulating some discussion." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't remember what I may have said about this story in the past, but I\nread it again, along with Borski's comments. It's hard to argue against his\ninterpretation of a bastardized rehash of the Fall, and if not everything\nmatches up with _Genesis_, that's not necessarily a mark against his theory;\nWolfe always changes things when he retells something. Cutthroat's\n\"birthmark\" is otherwise hard to account for, as is the tall winged being at\nthe end.\n\nStill, it's also hard to see that cold planet as Edenic, and it is Man who\nis returning to it to make it more paradisiacal. And the little we learn\nabout the men of the Great Sleigh seems to make them out to be do-gooder,\nholier-than-thou types out to transform not just the planet but the\nbeastmen, to make them over according to a moral code they brought with\nthem. If they aren't 'bad guys' (in the eyes of the jealous, vengeful God of\nthe O.T.), then how is it that they have usurped the role of God in this\nlittle drama?\n\nIf the Great Sleigh represents a type of Eden, and if Cutthroat was cast out\nof it for some reason, then we have a reversal of the _Genesis_ situation.\nAdam sinned and gained knowledge; Cutthroat sinned and lost knowledge -- his\nmemory.\n\nCutthroat made a sort of moral progress during his brief sojourn. He came to\nregard the beastmen as too near human to be killed and eaten. Was he\nrewarded for that change by being healed of his wound? Or was he rewarded by\nbeing allowed to die after less than three weeks of exile? Or was he further\npunished by being healed but left in exile?\n\nIf his \"birthmark\" was a mark like Cain's, then it did him little good. He\nwas mortally wounded (in the dark!) by one of the \"Min\" from the cave, who\nshould not have been able to harm a true man. But maybe their prime\ndirective was corrupted by their bits of flesh. (Poor Jonas.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why does the number fourteen seem significant to Cutthroat? (After he\nrecords the fourteenth day's log, Cim leaves her recorded parting\nmessage to him, which he apparently never listens to.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Best I can tell, it was an almost-remembered bit of knowledge, like bears\nand plastic and other planets with higher gravity. I think that, deep down,\nhe understood that if he had simply stayed where he was on day one, that the\nSleigh would complete its leisurely circumnavigation of the small planet in\ntwo weeks.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000c01c7aa10$a998a3a0$e4c95a42@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2007-06-08T21:04:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth)“Tracking Song” (and other stories)", "in_reply_to": "<000c01c7a99d$d7e1af40$a0c85a42@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wrote:\nI don't remember what I may have said about this story in the past, but I\nread it again, along with Borski's comments. It's hard to argue against his\ninterpretation of a bastardized rehash of the Fall," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Looking at that again, that's a misrepresentation of his theory, which is\nnot so much about the Fall as it is about the Cain and Abel story. Just to\nclarify.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370706171714y64f33fc9q94b6680c1bc1bcfa@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-06-18T00:14:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth)“Tracking Song” (and other stories)", "in_reply_to": "<000c01c7aa10$a998a3a0$e4c95a42@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "FWIW, I read it (as I do a number of Wolfe's pieces) as a darkening\nof the Bible story. Yes, it replays Cain and Abel with humans in the\nrole of God -- but that's the point; humans _can't_ take God's role and\nhave it work out well. The humans in the story are no more God than\nis Typhon/Pas, and their efforts are no better motivated, and will have\nno better outcome, than his." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 6/8/07, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nI wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't remember what I may have said about this story in the past, but I\nread it again, along with Borski's comments. It's hard to argue against his\ninterpretation of a bastardized rehash of the Fall," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Looking at that again, that's a misrepresentation of his theory, which is\nnot so much about the Fall as it is about the Cain and Abel story. Just to\nclarify.\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }