Subject: (urth) Urth syllabus

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:12:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #3038987 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Dan,

Re: Funes from FICCIONES, right--that's another Borges/BOTNS
touchstone (re: Severian's memory).  And folks often remember
"Circular Ruins" (if I'm getting that title right) with regard to
"The Tale of the Student and His Son" in particular; then there's the
"Library of Babel" as the Library of Nessus, and Master Ultan as
Borges himself.  (FICCIONES has some kabbalah in it, too, if I
remember right.)

Borges looms big ("Borges on the scale of Tolkien" does seem quite
apt).  Charles Dickens looms big.  Jack Vance's DYING EARTH (and all
antecedents) looms big.  Robert Graves looms big.

David Langford at long last has convinced me that the apparatus of
the Matachin Tower is the same as that within Kafka's "The Penal
Colony."  But is Sidero also Calvino's THE NON-EXISTANT KNIGHT, or is
that finally a stretch too far?  A tangent with no payoff?  A hunt
that brings nothing to the table?

If we were to arrange a syllabus for a thirteen week introductory
course (assuming participants have already read TBOTNS and URTH one
time through already), and that participants could read one or two
books a week, what would the two-dozen or so books be, and in what
order?

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:44:05 +0000

From: m.driussi at genie.geis.com

>antecedents) looms big.  Robert Graves looms big.

Maybe I tried to read DYING EARTH at the wrong time in my life, but it
never totally grabbed me, though I can easily see its impact on Wolfe.
Has Wolfe ever mentioned Brian Aldiss' HOTHOUSE (aka THE LONG
AFTERNOON OF EARTH) or STARSHIP (aka NONSTOP if I'm not mistaken)?
The latter especially seems to resonate in the LONG SUN books, it
being one of the great "generation ship" stories and featuring a
"priest" in a prominent role.  HOTHOUSE lacks any specific comparisons
other than a future with a dying sun, but there's something of the
same melancholy.

Wolfe actually made less obvious use of the eiditic memory thing than
Borges did in "Funes".  Borges seemed especially interested in the
idea that his person with a perfect memory had absolutely no ability
to make abstractions (he assigns names to individual numbers, etc.)
though Wolfe did echo the notion of how the memory of a memory can be
different from the memory itself, which also seems to reosnate a bit
with C.S. Lewis who talks at some length about how he learned to
experience joy in the abstract by remembering how he had felt
recalling a happy memory.

Which brings up C.S. Lewis as a possible syllabus item.  Wolfe is
apparently a fan and has even suggested that the posthumous DARK TOWER
is a fraud, but one wonders how his engineer's mind must have cringed
at certain things.  Apparently he's also a fan of VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS
(which I'm reading right now) though, so scientific accuracy may not
be the most important thing for him.  That's another of my "easy"
descriptions of Wolfe - the theology of Lewis expressed as hard
science fiction.  And the only thing I ever read prior to Wolfe that
gave me that feeling was James Blish's A CASE OF CONSCIENCE which I've
come to think of as almost an essential counterpart to Lewis' OUT OF
THE SILENT PLANET due to their differing takes on a "sinless" race.

D

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:53:21 +0000

> never totally grabbed me, though I can easily see its impact on Wolfe.

As an aside, I've just recently given Vance a try.  I adored THE DYING
EARTH, liked but was lukewarm about EYES OF THE OVERWORLD, and was bored
by the short-story collection THE AUGMENTED AGENT.  Given those reactions,
can anyone recommend some other Vance I might enjoy as much as THE DYING
EARTH? (maybe just e-mail me rather than the whole list)

> Which brings up C.S. Lewis as a possible syllabus item.  

Another theme from Lewis that appears in the LONG SUN books and the
SOLDIER books and I think in the URTH books too, comes from Perelandra
where Ransom asks where the miracle from God is to counter the infernal
"miracle" of Satan's agent in Perelandra.  Ransom realizes that he is,
himself, the miracle, the help God has provided.

This sounds almost exactly like Silk's statement of his comission from the
Outsider--"I am to expect no help because I *am* help."  Latro receives a
similar response when he remarks on the possible danger of the task given
him by one of the godesses: "If a child could have done it, I would not
have chosen you."

Although not expressed quite so explicitly, I think the way in which
Severian is tested bears some resemblance to this theme, but I'm not sure
I can defend that assertion before I do some long-overdue re-reading.

-Rostrum

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:46:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #5968886 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#

Dan,

I don't recollect Wolfe mentioning NON-STOP or THE LONG AFTERNOON OF
EARTH.  (I keep meaning to make a big ol' list of every book that
Wolfe ever mentions in passing in his own essays or interviews.
Someday, maybe.)

Re: Funes memory as different than Severian's.  Right, I'm glad you
mentioned it because that's what I was thinking myself.  But I was
thinking that the treatment was more like that of Proust rather than
C.S. Lewis.  (Speaking of whom--it is somewhat surprising how very
similar A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS [1920] and OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET
[1938] are.  I'd like to read an essay addressing this in depth.)

I'm not sure how much Wolfe is a fan of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (I mean
this literally rather than as a euphemism for "I know he hates it").
In a letter he once told me he thought it was a particularly grim
Protestant Pilgrim's Progress.  Now Harold Bloom loves A VOYAGE TO
ARCTURUS to death, and this fact is somewhat disturbing to alga!

Rostrum,

Re: Vance, a reader who likes DE; lukewarm to EO; bored with AA.
Well you might favor Vance's serious fantasy over his comical fantasy
and his science fiction.  If this is the case, avoid all other Dying
Earth novels and try the Lyonese trilogy.  If you want to give the sf
another try, the DEMON PRINCES series is a sort of James Bond as
ninja in space; PLANET OF ADVENTURE series is Vance's Barsoom.  If
you want sf with a dash more fantasy, go with the award winners: THE
LAST CASTLE and/or THE DRAGON MASTERS (but I don't recommend you read
them back to back, nor do so with SON OF THE TREE/HOUSES OF ISZM; these
pairings are thematically a tad too similar.  The better doubles, IMHO,
would have been SON OF THE TREE/THE DRAGON MASTERS and THE LAST CASTLE/
HOUSES OF ISZM).  And EMPHYRIO is another surprisingly-like-TBOTNS
book.

(There is a ton of Vance fiction out there and just about everybody
ranks 'em differently.  I myself like the recent NIGHT LAMP and most
recent PORTS OF CALL, fwiw.)

=mantis=

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:38:26 +0000

I would say that _The Jungle Books_ belong on this list, and perhaps other
Kipling, although I am not familiar enough with Kipling's other works to
make any specific suggestions.

Lewis Carroll's _Alice_ books are a possibility, although I think they may
have more influence on some of Wolfe's other writing than TBotNS. But there
does seem to be a definite resemblance between Father Inire and Lewis
Carroll himself.

This is even more true of Frank L. Baum's _Oz_ books. "The Eyeflash
Miracles" and, to a lesser extent, _Free Live Free_ make plain that Wolfe
read and was fond of these books, but I am not sure how much influence they
had on TNotNS.

On a semi-related note, I have been pleased to see that many of you Wolfe
fans share my appreciation of other authors as well.

(I remember reading _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ long, long ago with great
pleasure and I recall the scene in the "fake bedroom" quite well. Thanks
for the reminder, mantis!)

But, one name I haven't seen mentioned in this list is Mervyn Peake. I
enjoyed his _Gormenghast_ trilogy a tremendously. Although I don't recall
that his writing was especially "lupine," I think there are some
resemblances in atmosphere and scenery to Wolfe. Also, his short story,
"Boy in Darkness" which is closely related to the _Gormenghast_ trilogy
seems to use definite Christian symbolism although I have never understood
what Peake means by it.

William Ansley

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:09:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #2062352 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#

William Ansley,

Re: Mervyn Peake, Gene Wolfe has mentioned Peake's trilogy, saying
words to the effect that there was a bit of Steerpike to Severian . .
. hmmm, I can't find that line, but here is one from an interview of
Wolfe by Roert Frazier that ran in "Thrust No. 19" (1983):

"You didn't mention Peake's Gormenghast series, but I have read them
too, and I suspect TBOTNS is more like them than it is like [C.S.] Lewis'
work, or Tolkien's" (p. 8).

Re: Lewis Carroll, right, the consensus seems to be: As Borges is to
Master Ultan, so is Lewis Carroll to Father Inire.

Re: Kipling, I would use stories from The Jungle Books in examining
tales from the brown book--I have done so in the essay on the brown
book in NYRSF (Feb. 1993).

=mantis=

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:07:34 +0000

>to make abstractions (he assigns names to individual numbers, etc.)

	I think the subject of A.R. Lurias' _Mind of a Mnemonist_ had
a simliar experience, though the example given was that of the
how he experience courthouses. (He was a journalist covering cases
and he had trouble thinking of a general courthouse though he easily
memorised individual courthouse layouts.)

	I'll suggest _Mind of a Mnemonist_ as a non-fiction book to
add to the hypothetical syllabus. I wouldn't be surprised if someone
nominates a book by Oliver Sacks!

	Derek

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:52:27 +0000

I have just finished rereading PEACE for the fifth or sixth time. I think
it will always be my favorite Wolfe novel; perhaps only because it was the
first of his I read. I suggest that PEACE be made part of the Urth
syllabus. It is more accessible than TBotNS, because of its
semi-autobiographical nature it provides something of an insight into Wolfe
himself and it seems to prefigure so many of the ideas that occur in TBotNS
(as well as many of Wolfe's other works) even if only in embryonic form.

For example, the following two passages are (to me at least) very evocative
of TBotNS.

"...that this planet of America, turning round upon itself, stands only at
the outside, only at the periphery, only at the edges, of an infinite
galaxy, dizzily circling. And the stars that seem to ride our winds cause
them. Sometimes I think to see huge faces bending between those stars to
look through my two windows, faces golden and tenuous, touched with pity
and wonder..."

PEACE, p. 7, paragraph 2. Orb edition

"... men of stone stalking through the long grass like statues walking,
like telamones on their way to assist Atlas, dead men become their own
grave markers..."

PEACE, p. 156, paragraph 3. Orb edition

By the way, I just bought the Orb large format paperback edition of PEACE
because I can't find my old mass-market paperback copy. I read my old copy
many times, perhaps even more than I claim above. And I am certain that
there are some changes in the text between what I recall from my old copy
and the Orb edition. These are very minor changes that may well be typo
corrections, if they are real. Does anyone one know if the Orb edition was
edited?

William Ansley