Subject: (urth) What the elm?

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:21:05 +0000

H'mmm.

Sometimes in looking at the way we discuss Wolfe, I am
reminded of a pair of comments Alan Moore made during
the publication of the classic comic, WATCHMEN, which
he wrote.

Early on, he mentioned in an interview that "everything" in the
comic meant something.

During its twelve-month span of publication, there was an
incredible correspondence on Usenet, in which (it seemed)
every single detail of every panel of each issue was
dissected, compared to details in other panels, etc.

After several months of this, Moore said, in another interview,
that, while everything in the comic meant something, not
everything meant *much*.

This is *not* a put-down to the work Matthew King has done
on the elm. I believe it very likely that Wolfe had at least some
of this in mind when he chose an elm tree for Weer's grave
decoration. The question in my mind, though, is this: how
much does knowing this affect my reading of the book? Does
knowing the significance of the elm help me to peace, uh,
piece together the crabbed and mysterious timeline of
Weer's life; to understand why he is (seemingly) trapped in
this particular afterworld; or any of the mysteries associated
with the individual accounts?

If not, then this is a case of "means something, but not
much."

But, it still means *something* ...

(wanders off, scratching head and pondering the significance
of short-person behavior in penal-depressive and other
highly ambient domains)

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
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reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.

---

From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:19:22 +0000

> with the individual accounts?

Knowing (or guessing) the connection to the Aeneid doesn't help in  
the interpretation of Peace unless Wolfe borrowed much more than just  
an elm.  Peace is packed so full of fragmentary and subverted stories  
that another classical allusion is hardly illuminating.

If we were to unearth Vergilian (or Dantean) monsters in the  
menagerie of Weer's musings, or if we find some other Aenean  
analogue, then perhaps the connection would be more than merely  
interesting.

Matthew

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:31:14 +0000

> analogue, then perhaps the connection would be more than merely

Indeed!

Well, I have suggested before in this forum that ... oh, damn, suddenly
my mind is going blank on characters ... the voice Weer hears calling
him (over the intercom?) at the "end" of the book ... is a psychopomp,
trying to lure him forth from his grave/Purgatory to Heaven. There might
be something in classical myth that fits here.

I also believe fwiw that the elm itself was trapping him (though it may
not have been a _physical_ elm a-tall, a-tall) in his coffin/sleep/death
until the book's "beginning." Thus its fall begins the process that ends
with the voice of the psychopomp; the next thing to happen is Weer's
(self-)judgment and his journey to his eternal fate.

I do not speculate on what that fate may be.

That being the case, I was perhaps a *little* disingenuous in using
your post as a launching place for my own comment on the
potential for over-zealous analysis of the Lupine textus; it was
actually quite a bad example for my point, given that I think the
elm is, in fact, hugely significant.

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From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:49:11 +0000

> elm is, in fact, hugely significant.

Your comment was well-launched and worthy of attention.  I would even  
pervert it into a principle:

Because Wolfe delights in the appropriation of people, places, and  
things, we should not consider an allusion or borrowing to be  
important to the interpretation of a work -- unless the connection  
sheds light on a **problem we have already identified**.

The discovery of an allusion, in other words, should not spawn new  
problems in interpretation.  Unless it obviously does, which I am  
sure will be the case somewhere in the Lupine corpus.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:00:16 +0000

On 6/6/07, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
> problems in interpretation.

I like that phrasing best.

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From: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:49:34 +0000

> analogue, then perhaps the connection would be more than merely

The elm standing by the gates of Hell (or the underworld) ties in quite well 
with Borski's "Weer as the Devil" musings.  If you haven't already read it, 
the essay is definitely worth the time, regardless of whether or not you find 
it convincing:

http://www.siriusfiction.com/PaxBorskii.html

---

From: JWillard <aldenweer at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 06:50:32 +0000

>I like that phrasing best.
I think the mistake is to assume an allusion is just some sort of homage 
or a wink and a nod:  I don't know if it's that simple.  I'm starting to 
think more and more that Virgil and Dante are extremely important to 
Wolfe (Averns, anyone?).  Given their contributions to the Roman 
Catholic faith, this would not be surprising.  I'm curious if there are 
any connections to Augustine, as well.  (And someone might have pointed 
all of this out, but I have less and less time to read and confer with 
previous posts.)  Recently started reading Inferno, and Dante's choices 
of focus are striking to a Wolfean:  Charon is there, of course, and 
Nessus carries Dante across one of the rivers.  I think it's quite 
possible that the Book of the New Sun is Wolfe playing with the Divine 
Comedy.

Another influence, that I've never really seen anyone address, is 
Nabokov.  Wolfe admits the influence, and Nabokov is a tricky, tricky 
man, and I believe Wolfe learned much from him.  Here is a passage from 
the introduction to the Annotated Lolita (Which Wolfe might well have 
read) called, fittingly, Nabokov's Puppet Show, and which, when I read 
it, blared "Wolfe!" to me.  (In your mind, substitute Wolfe for Nabokov, 
and see what you think.)

"Nabokov's remarks on Gogol help to underscore this analogical 
definition of involution: "All reality is a mask," he writes (p.148), 
and Nabokov's narratives are masques, stagings of his own inventions 
rather than recreations of the naturalistic world.  But, since the 
latter is what most readers expect and demand of fiction, many still do 
not understand what Nabokov is doing.  They are not accustomed to "the 
allusions to something else behind the crudely painted screens"(p.142), 
where the "real plots behind the obvious ones are taking place."  There 
are thus at least two "plots" in all of Nabokov's fiction:  the 
characters in the book, and the consciousness of the creator above it - 
the "real plot" which is visible in the "gaps" and "holes" in the 
narrative....Although other writers have created involuted works, 
Nabokov's self-consciousness is supreme;  and the range and scale of his 
effects, his mastery and control, make him unique."

There's much more.

I know that in my own experience, the second reading of any Wolfe work 
is almost radically different from the first.  As if I were reading a 
*different* book.  Nabokov is the only other author I've had this 
reaction to.

In The White Goddess, Graves mentions the connection between the elm and 
the vine of Dionysus - which, as Borski's pointed out, is what Dennis is 
short for.

---

From: Jesper Svedberg <jsvedberg at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:38:58 +0000

JWillard skrev:

> man, and I believe Wolfe learned much from him.

While Wolfe has said that he has read Nabokov, I seem to remember that 
he also said that he first read him very late in his life (that is, 
after he found his own voice). I can't really seem to find a cite for 
this though, except this post: 
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0025/0091.shtml so perhaps someone 
knows more about it than I do.

   // Jesper

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:48:28 +0000

On 6/6/07, JWillard <aldenweer at charter.net> wrote:

> or a wink and a nod:  I don't know if it's that simple.

Certainly not *all* are! I'm not inveighing against noting or interpreting
allusions, only against the assumption that all allusions are equally
significant.

> I think it's quite possible that the Book of the New Sun is Wolfe
> playing with the Divine Comedy.

Wow. That's interesting, particularly if you revert to the original
structure of a trilogy. Thecla as Beatrice? Jonas (or Talos) as
Vergil? H'mmm.

> the vine of Dionysus - which, as Borski's pointed out, is what Dennis is

Yes. But then, he's mostly called "Den" (short for both "Alden" and "Dennis"),
and that's where a wolf dwells...

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:49:33 +0000

> and that's where a wolf dwells...

I haven't read Peace, but I was zipping through this
letter and misread the bit above as "and that's where
Wolfe dwells. . ." That is, the mutable space between
meanings. It's obviously not what you said nor what
you meant but it seemed like a fortunate error, so I
thought I'd share it.

Don

The Evangelists: a Lesser Apocrypha                                                                        http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=178109961

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:50:44 +0000

On 6/7/07, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wolfe dwells. . ."

Heh. I almost wrote "a Wolfe," and decided it would be
kinda twee of me. (It isn't twee as a misreading, just
doing it on purpose.)

> That is, the mutable space between

And I'll second it.