Subject: (urth) Graves etc. (was: A Cabin on the Coast)

From: Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:39:05 +0000

On Jan 16, 2008 5:04 PM, Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I saw your "Interpreting Wolfe" list on Amazon; I see you put The
> White Goddess on that too. It's one of those things I've been meaning
> to read for a while, and learning it's influenced by Wolfe makes me
> want to read it more. <snip>

I'm glad you found that Amazon list.  I've been creating for myself a
course in Wolfe-related readings, trying to fill in the vast holes in
my very pragmatic public school education.*  The list on Amazon is one
product of that course.  I've been altering it now and then as I find
new books and reject some less helpful or less interesting ones.

There's no doubt in my mind that Wolfe has read The Golden Bough at
least in abridged form, along with Joseph Campbell's works.  Also, The
Golden Bough is the basis for much of Graves's work in The White
Goddess.  (But I suggest you read Graves not as if it were
anthropology or even comparative mythology, but as fantasy.  Fantasy
non-fiction.  That's how I have to read it.  It's too improbable for
me to read it as scholarship.)

I'm sure others can speak more knowledgeably about Graves than I can.
I have found The White Goddess to be very difficult, slow going,
particularly since I have almost no background in the things he's
talking about (sometimes I don't even know what he's talking about).**
 The thing in Pirate Freedom that suggests Graves's influence is the
relationship between Chris/Ignacio*** and Novia.****  I think this
relationship is one of Wolfe's versions of / reactions to Graves's
"Single Poetic Theme", which Graves summarizes thus:

"The Theme, briefly, is the antique story ... of the birth, life,
death and resurrection of the God of the Waxing Year; the central
chapters concern the God's losing battle with the God of the Waning
Year for love of the capricious and all-powerful Threefold Goddess,
their mother, bride, and layer-out.  The poet identifies himself with
the God of the Waxing Year and his Muse with the Goddess; the rival is
his blood-brother, his other self, his weird."

So the Theme is a cyclical one (reflecting the year cycle, the sowing
and reaping of grain), a loop like the plot of Pirate Freedom.  The
advent of genetic cloning affords an sf trope on this ancient myth.

While it has been a terribly difficult read for me, I would encourage
you to read The White Goddess, if for no other reason than that it has
been tough going alone, and might be instructive and interesting to
discuss it on the list.  I think it would interesting to work out
where its influence on Wolfe appears, and how Wolfe's own interests
and beliefs, particularly his Catholicism, lead him to deviate from
this Single Poetic Theme.

* I'm tempted to rant here about the state of public education in the
US -- and how, however much we are behind in math and science, we are
ten times worse in our neglect of the humanities.

** I suppose what I need now is a reading list for understanding
Graves's The White Goddess, but I'm presently unwilling to go there.

*** and perhaps extending to Se or Guzman and Chris's child.

**** and maybe Estrellita? Azuka? Pinkie?

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:22:30 +0000

I wrote:

>I vowed at the time Marc Aramini posted what Wolfe really had to say about
>_The White Goddess_ that I was going to post a link to that post every time
>someone raised the specter of _The White Goddess_ and its supposed
influence
>on Wolfe. I can't seem to find it now, so it must be in the year of lost
>archives. Could you send it again, Marc?

Well, Marc didn't answer, but I'm not the only one to remember that post.
Thanks to Tony Ellis, I am able to append it here. The post is, indeed, in
the lost year of archives. I know it upsets many long-held and cherished
theories of Wolfe interpretation, which is probably why it has been widely
forgotten, but it bears repeating.

-Roy

*************************************************

    from aramini1 at cox.net
    to urth at urth.net,
    date May 22, 2004 12:09 AM
    subject (urth) wolfe's comments on a few texts

    I asked Mr. Wolfe about a few books which have come up under
discussion on the list as possible sources for his work.  I thought
some of us would be interested in his response, so I'll quote it.
Keep in mind that I asked his opinion about the books, so he is just
answering my questions.

    "You asked about some books.  I haven't read KING JESUS.  I read
enough of THE WHITE GODDESS (which is still around here somewhere) to
conclude that Graves, with all his talent, was a crackpot.  Have you
read I, CLAUDIUS? Or HERCULES MY SHIPMATE?  They're fine, fine books,
both of them.  I read one book by Mary Renault; I'm no longer sure of
the title.  It bored me halfway to madness, and I've never tried
anything else."

    I thought that was interesting.

    Marc Aramini

---

From: Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:09:40 +0000

On 1/17/08, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> I know it upsets many long-held and cherished
>  "I read enough of THE WHITE GODDESS (which is still around here somewhere) to conclude that Graves, with all his talent, was a crackpot."

"Upsets" nothing!  Wolfe fans rejoice; you don't have to read The
White Goddess!  Philosophically, TWG is pretty much diametrically
opposed to Wolfe anyway, TWG being in part a sort of lamenting of the
great apostasy that is the shift from worship of the Goddess to
Judeo-Christian worship.

I do recommend Graves's book on the Greek myths -- very handy for the
etymology of names.  But it sounds like Frazer's The Golden Bough is
probably a better source Wolfe's reception of comparative mythology
and religion.

---

From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:38:39 +0000

> probably a better source Wolfe's reception of comparative mythology

Not that Frazer is much closer to Wolfe's views - he was very critical
of Christianity. Parts of the Golden Bough are direct attempts to
undermine Christian beliefs. Alas, I doubt any of us will read the
whole thing - it's about thirteen volumes, and the only
readily-available print version is the Oxford University Press
abridgment (which is still 800 pages long). Frazer's own two-volume
abridgment is out-of-print and apparently doesn't have some of the
most interesting and controversial material. The abridgment is
available online at Project Gutenberg though:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3623

Do check it out. Unlike The White Goddess, Frazer is fun to read.

-Matt

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:24:06 +0000

sorry roy, hadn't checked my email for a few days.

Yes, I was about to post something to that effect -
Wolfe is a reader of fiction, and while he researches
his novels, I think we would be surprised to note how
much time he has spent exclusively writing rather than
amassing a huge collection of esoteric and obscure
books that he peruses in his infinite time.  

I think he once told me he hadn't gotten far in War
and Peace, nor read the entirety of Brothers
Karamazov.  However, to be fair, he has certainly read
all of Dickens and Proust and Herodotus and
Chesterton, and the other obvious influences.

But you don't have to have read everything to be a
great creator, eh?

> forgotten, but it bears repeating.

      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:12:05 +0000

Matthew Groves quoted and wrote:
>>  "I read enough of THE WHITE GODDESS (which is still around here
somewhere) to conclude that Graves, with all his talent, was a crackpot."
>White Goddess!

I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading TWG -- I've read it several times
myself, decades ago. It has a certain appeal, even fascination, for young
males of a certain poetic bent; but Lupine it ain't.

> Philosophically, TWG is pretty much diametrically

Right. Which is why I was decrying it as a source for interpreting Wolfe
long before I knew that Wolfe hadn't even finished reading it. But if you
look through the archives you will be amazed at how often someone cites TWG
as justification for some theory or other about understanding Wolfe. It's
been done with KING JESUS, too. And people become strident in defense of the
indefensible. (Rant stifled.)

>etymology of names.

Alice K. Turner once posted her comments on that book and some on TWG that
might be of interest.

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0304/3337.txt.shtml

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:50:42 +0000

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:24:06 +1100 Marc Aramini 
>But you don't have to have read everything to be a

Some people seem to think it would have been a good thing if Wolfe 
had intended to rewrite Graves, Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, Borges, 
Joyce, Dante, The Green Knight, Parsifal, The Magus etc etc etc. 

I've never really understood that. Apart from anything else, I get 
the impression that Wolfe thinks he can do a lot better than most 
of these supposed models.

---

From: JWillard <aldenweer at charter.net>
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:19:29 +0000

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:

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>  
>
And some people would seem to prefer that Wolfe's work was 
parthenogenic, thus blocking the troublesome avenues of unexplored 
possibilities in the work of an author who seems to constantly invite 
speculation.  I would be more sympathetic to such an argument if this 
were Isaac Asimov.  But this is a book where a torture device in the 
corner is lifted from Kafka and the blind librarian Ultan seems to 
invoke Jorge Luis Borges.  I have never understood the cut-off point 
here or the threat felt by such explorations, but there does seem to be 
a correspondence between the act of 'faith' and the belief in 'story' as 
a self-enclosed, inviolate unit.  It has the whiff of a flat-Urth mentality.

Forgive me if I step away from the dark ages.  If anyone is still in 
charge, please remove me from this list.

---

From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:04:06 +0000

> charge, please remove me from this list.

http://listserver.dreamhost.com/listinfo.cgi/urth-urth.net

Info on unsubscribing at the bottom of the page.

So long then?

-Matt