Subject: (urth) An Evil Guest - Big Questions, Major SPOILERS

From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:59:14 +0000

I just finished An Evil Guest, and I have quite a few questions (as is par
for the course with Wolfe). Really liked the book though - I liked Pirate
Freedom, but I thought this was much superior. And I think it provided more
room for speculation too.
My major questions follow below the spoiler space...

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The Wolders - Are those the bat creatures? How are the laws of physics
different on Woldercan? Does this relate to hopper technology? And alchemy
too? Time travel? What exactly IS Gideon Chase? Where did RC (presumably his
father Robert) get that watch? The Silent Woman? The living mountain? Arthur
Thomas Franklin? Three names... like Howard Philips Lovecraft? What sort of
incantatory purpose did Dating the Volcano God serve?
Did Cassie really DO anything - she sometimes seems more spectator than
actor How does William Reis know the name "Ry'leh?" Did the Navy win?

Other comments:
Forty-seven states? Also, the bit about "post-parturition abortion" was the
most explicitly political I've seen Wolfe get in a long time. What, by the
way, is a "defective" child? Perhaps one whose genetic engineering didn't
work out? There's a reference to anticloning laws in the last chapter, so
presumably the future US can perform some genetic engineering.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the book,

-Matt
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From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:23:31 +0000

Spoilers--I also finished this morning.

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I can't answer all of that, but "Arthur Thomas Franklin" is a
government agency--presumably slang for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms--the ATF (now officially Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives, but still ATF).

A "defective" child is probably just a child born with a genetic
defect or other inborn condition.  I took it as a reference to the
current practice of aborting Down Syndrome fetuses rather than a hint
as to an elaborate regime of genetic engineering.

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Matthew Keeley
<matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
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From: Russell Wodell <wrustle at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:34:35 +0000

Other questions & therefore spoilers...

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Like *Free Live Free* and *There Are Doors*, *An Evil Guest* seems to be
taking place in the future and in the 1940s simultaneously. I mean,
seriously, a big off-Broadway musical about a missionary's daughters in the
South Seas? Could even "glamour" make that possible in today's or tomorrow's
theatre? Wouldn't a vanity film or 3-d "vid" be more probable?

Hasn't Wolfe used the Shark God and the Squid God before in a fairly recent
short story?

We're told pretty explicitly that the "gods" of former civilizations are in
reality aliens who live unobserved on Earth. Does this mean that the "gods"
Latro encounters in the *Soldier* novels are also aliens? Are we in a *
Stargate* situation?

I appeal to better minds than mine...
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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:40:08 +0000

> as to an elaborate regime of genetic engineering.
Re: ATF: I should have remembered about the ATF.

Re: defective: I considered that, but "defective" has the ring of
manufacture about it; as in "I returned the defective TV to the store." And
these aren't kids being aborted from the womb: this is "post-parturition"
(i.e. after-birth) abortion. Are we supposed to assume that there are people
who would a) give birth to a child with Down Syndrome and then b) abort it
after living with said child for a few years. I don't think anyone good
enough to do a) would be cold-hearted enough to do b).

-Matt
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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:56:44 +0000

On 2008.09.21 18:40:08 -0400, Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> scribbled 3.4K characters:

>    Re: defective: I considered that, but "defective" has the ring of manufacture about it; as in
>    "I returned the defective TV to the store." And these aren't kids being aborted from the womb:
>    this is "post-parturition" (i.e. after-birth) abortion. Are we supposed to assume that there
>    are people who would a) give birth to a child with Down Syndrome and then b) abort it after
>    living with said child for a few years. I don't think anyone good enough to do a) would be
>    cold-hearted enough to do b).
>    -Matt

I've not enjoyed EG yet, but the moment someone mentioned 'defective', I immediately thought of eugenics. Particularly in post-birth situations, I think that's the right connection to draw (Nazis and 1930s and all).

--
gwern
17 Bugs SS8 Undercover Tie-fighter AST Goodwin SABC CFC IWIS
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From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:08:00 +0000

The eugenics connection is, I think correct.  As for no one being
"heartless" enough to kill a "defective" child post delivery, I direct
you to noted ethicist Peter Singer.  Money quote:

"''I do not think it is always wrong to kill an innocent human
being,'' Professor Singer told the rapt audience in Harold Helm
Auditorium. ''Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing
a person.''"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2D91530F930A25753C1A96F958260&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

If Wolfe is pro-life, as many conservative Catholics are, he'd be
quite likely to be aware of Singer's stance on the moral significance
of the life of a disabled child.

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 6:56 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:05:52 +0000

> Auditorium. ''Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing

I know of Singer and his ideas - my point was that most people who would
give birth to a child with a genetic defect (instead of aborting it) would
be incapable of killing after it was born, after it was more (as it were)
than an image on a sonogram. Would Wolfe's hypothetical "civil rights"
groups really be looking for permission to kill retarded children five years
after birth? How many people would actually take up on that? But if your
designer baby didn't come out to spec, maybe you'd eventually decide it
wasn't worth it... I think Wolfe's future is pretty dark, once you turn off
the Broadway lights.

-Matt
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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:39:43 +0000

Matthew Keeley writes:
>> Also, the bit about "post-parturition abortion" was the
> most explicitly political I've seen Wolfe get in a long time. 

Any cross reference to Dick's very powerful anti-abortion story, "The 
Pre-Persons," which involved just such a trope??? 

http://www.thenightland.co.uk 

01273-488272 / 0777-214-9545

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From: Pedro Pereira <domus_artemis at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:53:07 +0000

I doubt Latro's Gods have anything to do with aliens. It's a different book with different concepts and ideas. Wolfe actually believes that Pagan Gods were/are real, some kind of minor gods that exist alongside the "real and only God" and that are not deserving of beying worshiped. He once said that modern science has shown that such is possible. I don't know were he got that idea from though...

Pedro

Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:34:35 -0700From: wrustle at gmail.comTo: urth at lists.urth.netSubject: Re: (urth) An Evil Guest - Big Questions, Major SPOILERS

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Like Free Live Free and There Are Doors, An Evil Guest seems to be taking place in the future and in the 1940s simultaneously. I mean, seriously, a big off-Broadway musical about a missionary's daughters in the South Seas? Could even "glamour" make that possible in today's or tomorrow's theatre? Wouldn't a vanity film or 3-d "vid" be more probable?
 
Hasn't Wolfe used the Shark God and the Squid God before in a fairly recent short story? 
 
We're told pretty explicitly that the "gods" of former civilizations are in reality aliens who live unobserved on Earth. Does this mean that the "gods" Latro encounters in the Soldier novels are also aliens? Are we in a Stargate situation? 
 
I appeal to better minds than mine...
_________________________________________________________________
Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger?
http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline
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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:02:17 +0000

> I doubt Latro's Gods have anything to do with aliens. It's a different
> book with different concepts and ideas. Wolfe actually believes that Pagan
> Gods were/are real, some kind of minor gods that exist alongside the "real
> and only God" and that are not deserving of beying worshiped. He once said
> that modern science has shown that such is possible. I don't know were he
> got that idea from though...

I believe that he is making a little joke: some people call it
'scientism', when you make a religion out of science.

.

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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:45:16 +0000

On 2008.09.21 20:05:52 -0400, Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> scribbled 3.2K characters:
>    On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 7:08 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>    I know of Singer and his ideas - my point was that most people who would give birth to a child
>    with a genetic defect (instead of aborting it) would be incapable of killing after it was
>    born, after it was more (as it were) than an image on a sonogram. Would Wolfe's hypothetical
>    "civil rights" groups really be looking for permission to kill retarded children five years
>    after birth? How many people would actually take up on that? But if your designer baby didn't
>    come out to spec, maybe you'd eventually decide it wasn't worth it... I think Wolfe's future
>    is pretty dark, once you turn off the Broadway lights.
>    -Matt

I wouldn't be so sanguine about people not killing infants and youngsters. There are many examples of people killing their kids, in a systematic fashion. Wolfe would no doubt be acquainted with the famous Spartan traditions of exposure; I recall similar Russian traditions. You can't read Victorian accounts of China without there being clucking over how those Chinese like to abandon babies to die, to say nothing of how various massacres, wars, purges etc. never respected young humans (and sometimes targeted them specifically; I think I remember Rwandan rhetoric about not letting the children of cockroaches grow up to be cockroaches).

Some of these are economically motivated but many are not. And then we begin to consider all the sterilizations and euthanasias in America and Nazi Germany.

Now, presumably someone who is pro-life before birth will not become pro-choice after birth (and in an extreme Singeresque way); but on the other hand, I've seen more than one fictional work in which a burdensome sibling or parent is quietly extinguished. ("How tragic that our retarded brother passed away last night. I suppose he must have been stifled by the heat.") And we're assuming that that someone has a choice; in some situations like the national eugenics programs, that choice may be nonexistent.

--
gwern
Armani rounds World 7NL Medco Bunny Consul TECS ssor SBI
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From: Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:51:24 +0000

Check out "The Tree is My Hat" from *Innocents Aboard*.

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From: Bruce Hayles <brucehayles at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:41:57 +0000

Perhaps owing to lousy reading, I am left with a lot of fundamental
questions that no one else has brought up.

Gideon gets the ambassadorship. Does this mean that he was able to get the
FBI and the president what they wanted? Bill Reis dies at the end, but the
goal was to understand his operations, not kill him. Has Gideon already
given the president the information he wants and arranged his death? We know
that Gideon has been working for him, and presumably is collecting the
information he needs. Or is Reis's death completely independent of Gideon,
but he's already found the information he needs? If he is behind it, how
could he have foreseen the storm and Kanoa's takeover?

Was Cassie used just to make Bill Reis vulnerable? Did Gideon expect Bill
Reis to love her, or did he just hope Reis interacting with her would get
him closer to Reis?

The bats that save Cassie and land her on the island--is Gideon's hand in
this at all?

Basically, I'm wondering if Gideon is behind the final circumstances in the
book, or if they would have happened anyway. The simplest explanation is
that Gideon got the information he needed and all the other events just
happened. Reis caused the storm by dropping the gold over the Storm King and
getting the attention of the navy, after all. If Gideon wasn't behind the
final events, I suppose they are in the book to show the transformative
power of love (Reis sacrificing himself). And then Cassie is going to
Wondercan because she stills feels love for Gideon. On the other hand, if
Gideon was behind the ending events, then he used Cassie--he gave her beauty
and took it away--and perhaps she is going to Wondercan for revenge.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com
> wrote:

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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:55:32 +0000

> questions that no one else has brought up.

Alternatively, you're asking Big Questions while we go after smaller
things...

>
>
>  Or is Reis's death completely independent of Gideon, but he's already
> found the information he needs? If he is behind it, how could he have
> foreseen the storm and Kanoa's takeover?
>

Re: takeover: The islanders apparently worshipped Hanga, but at the end
Kandy suggests they actually worship the Squid God (I like how Wolfe avoids
the C-word throughout the book). Perhaps the Squid God ate Hanga the way
Hanga ate the king's "gaffer?" Would that make the "natives" change their
allegiance?

Also - those bat again... Cassie mentions Batman when she describes them to
Sharon, but says they were more "manbats." There's actually a Batman
character named Man-Bat, a scientist who transforms into a bat-creature
after ingesting the wrong chemicals... I'm going to assume Wolfe doesn't
know this and this isn't a hint, as Wolfe doesn't seem the type to be up on
Bat-trivia...

Man-Bat link: "On Leather Wings" from the Batman Animated Series:
http://video.aol.com/video/on-leather-wings/1727987

Speaking of Batman, I'm mildly surprised we never had a discussion of The
Dark Knight here. Fantastic film I thought.

-Matt
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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:09:41 +0000

Have we looked at naming in An Evil Guest?
Cassiopeia - QUEEN of Ethiopia (
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/Cassiopeia.html
)
Gideon - Biblical judge (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06402c.htm)
Rusterman (Another Reis identity) - Googled this, and found it's a bit of
joke - It's a real restaurant that features in some Nero Wolfe stories.

More?

-Matt
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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:50:11 +0000

> Explosives, but still ATF).

I'm still catching up, since I *just* got it and read it, but it is
without a doubt an ATF reference. There's even a Waco allusion in
there!*

* If I'm not reading too much into the veiled comments about their
stubbornness and propensity to violence.

-- 
gwern