Subject: (urth) Random thoughts on AEG

From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:15:58 +0000

Just tossing some random half-thoughts, ideas and speculations around
here...

1	If Bill Reis is a Christ figure, is the US president's desire to gain his
secret of manufacturing gold analogous to the people's reaction to the
feeding of the 5,000. They search for Jesus, but only because they want more
bread, not because they understand the significance of the miracle (John
6.26)?

2	I'm still not sure about the signigifance of gold in AEG, especially as
the quotation from Simonides at the start of the book refers to gold as "an
evil guest". It seems much more natural to interpret the squid god as THE
evil guest in the story. On the other hand, it's Reis' willingness to give
his gold away, or at least use it as a lure for the US Navy, that leads to
the attack on the squid's sunken city. The gold proves to be an unwelcome
guest for Squiddie.

3	We can find all sorts of meanings and associations for the name "Gideon",
but the association that springs to mind for most people ("Rocky Raccoon",
anyone?) is "Gideon's bible", referring to a bible placed in a hotel room or
hospital by the Gideons International organisation. So, could the name
"Gideon Chase" be meant to refer to the bible in some way? The character's
surname, "Chase", surely refers to the fact that he acts as a detective.
He's "chasing" Bill Reis. So, are we to suppose that in some allegorical
fashion, it's the bible that starts Cassie's search for Christ? If that were
the case, her and Chase's initial interpretation of Reis' nature is clearly
wrong... Or is it just that Reis himself changes, and becomes more
Christ-like?

4	Does Gideon Chase remind anyone else around here of Bruce Wayne/Batman?
Maybe it's his black super-car/hopper that brought that association to mind.
Many of the Batman films have emphasised 1940s design values. I wonder
whether they influenced the design values in AEG (see 6 below!)?

5	Is Cassie, who has been married twice before and loves both Chase and
Reis, another of Wolfe's Gomer/whorish-wife figures? (See Hosea 1.1ff and
compare Silk's love for Hyacinth in "Long Sun".) The unworthy and unfaithful
but deeply loved woman who represents Israel/the church...

6	Is there a King Kong subtext buried somewhere in this novel? As others
have pointed out, Wolfe has written the novel as though it were an 1930s/40s
film. The characterisations and even the dialogue are right out of a black
and white film of that era. Some people have reacted negatively to these
aspects and see scenes like the encounter with the mountie as just bad,
whereas I think that what Wolfe is doing is a thorough pastiche of films
from this period, including the quips and smart-alec dialogue that can often
sound laboured to our ears now. But did Wolfe have a specific film in mind?
Maybe it's just the South Sea Island theme that emerges late in AEG that
reminds me of "King Kong", but that film too is about sacrifice. At one
point, the tribe on Skull Island offer the film's heroine as a sacrifice to
their god Kong, but he falls in love with her and carries her off rather
than devouring her. He defends her from other monsters (dinosaurs) on Skull
Island and later, in New York, protects her (in a manner or speaking) from
the aircraft that shoot at him while he's climbing the Empire State
Building. There was a recent film remake of "King Kong"... Is Reis, the
financial giant, a metaphorical Kong substitute, tamed by Cassie's
loveliness? "It was beauty killed the beast!"

7	Is there a Chestertonian "Man who was Thursday" thing going on AEG? The
hero in Chesterton's novel is a detective recruited to go after the seven
members of the Central Council of Anarchists, each of whom, when he corners
them, turns out to be another under-cover detective on the same mission. The
seventh and last member of the council, Sunday, turns out to be a
Christ-like figure rather than a super villain. Is this the basic template
for AEG? Cassie is recruited to go after a super villain who turns out not
to be a villain but a Christ-figure?

Just thinking aloud here! Comments, anyone?

Nigel

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:07:09 +0000

8	Was anyone else struck by the thought that Wolfe is making a wicked pun by
calling Cassie's agent Zelda Youmans?

I take it that "Zelda Youmans" stands for "sell the humans".

Whether this is just a little joke about agents, or whether it is a comment
on Zelda's allegiances, I'm not sure. I rather assume the former, but I'm
happy to hear a case for the latter.

Nigel

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From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:31:39 +0000

> I take it that "Zelda Youmans" stands for "sell the humans".

Hide the weapons from the women, in the case you should faint.

---

From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:01:34 +0000

6	King Kong

Sorry, I didn't read the early messages on AEG becuase at the time I still
hadn't got my copy of the book. I'm rereading them now and see that Don
Doggett mentioned King Kong in his very first, non-spoiler, review of AEG:

>>And this is a pulp novel, from the cover to
>>the last page. It riffs on Lovecraft,
>>The Circus of Dr. Lao (absolute required
>>reading before or after reading this book),
>>King Kong, The Shadow, and god knows what
>>else.

Kudos to Don for being their first by a long way!

Nigel

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:02:46 +0000

...Or even "there" first!

N.

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:28:40 +0000

4	OK, on Wed Sep 24 20:55:32 PDT 2008, Matthew Keeley had already picked up
on the Batman thing and mentioned what I had noticed while reading but
forgotten while writing, namely that Cassie specifically refers to Batman,
albeit in the context of describing the alien bat-like creatures.

>>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.

But this doesn't pick up on the Gideon as Batman question.

I'd better keep reading through the last two months' worth of AEG
discussion!

Nigel

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From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:31:35 +0000

> albeit in the context of describing the alien bat-like creatures.

"Bats with Baby Faces" -- anyone fancy having a go at the Eliot  
connection?

Adam
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From: Brian Lovely <brian at studiobl.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:28:35 +0000

QUOTE
So, could the name "Gideon Chase" be meant to refer to the bible in some way
QUOTE

I haven't read AEG, but I couldn't help butting in.  A Gideon bible is
placed by an outside actor (member of Gideon International) in case it is
needed (midnight crisis of faith on the road).  Could this somehow describe
Gideon Chase? 

--Brian

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:58:12 +0000

6	I raised King Kong, 30s pulp and reproducing the cliches of the genre:
Dave Lebling addressed the whole 30s pulp issue brilliantly back on Sat Sep
27 19:12:09 PDT 2008...

>>The book is obviously built around an homage
>>to the pulp fiction of the 1930s. Detective
>>story, theater story, Lovecraftian horror,
>>detective story, "strange powers" story (notice
>>the mention of a man named Cranston who could
>>disappear), South Seas adventure/love story,
>>and on and on. Wolfe is having a lot of fun
>>here. He's also using all the cliches of the
>>genres he includes, right up to the (grating
>>to today's ears) naive and friendly/dangerous
>>Natives to the Japanese Com Pu Ter who can't
>>pronounce Ls. None of that makes any sense in
>>2100, but in 1935 it was what pulps had.

Yes, and we can include the awful faux English accent of King Kanoa, which
reproduces the awfully mannered accents used by supposedly British
characters in American films of the 30s and 40s.

While we're on King Kanoa ("King Canoe"? King Canute?), there are a couple
of spellings in AEG that had me wondering whether the book was either poorly
proofread (like my posts!) or set in a parallel universe. King Kanoa refers
to his school as "Eaton", when he presumably means "Eton", and earlier in
the book, Gideon Chase quotes a poet he refers to as "Spencer", when he
actually means Edmund Spenser. (Others have made the same mistake, including
those who arranged his memorial in Westminster Abbey, if memory serves me
right, but still, Wolfe should know it's Spenser with an S!)

For anyone interested, Gideon chase quotes Spenser on page 78 of AEG:

>>Gideon nodded to himself as he signed.
>>"'One may buy gold at a price too deare.'
>>Who said that? Spencer?"

The quotation comes from line 108 of the August eclogue in Spenser's "The
Shepheardes Calender". The phrase is proverbial, however, and Spenser was
neither the first nor last to use it.

In the context of allegorical interpretations of AEG and the significance of
gold in the story, Matthew Henry's use of the proverb is interesting. In his
"Concise Commentary", he writes concerning the Parable of the Pearl of Great
Price in Matthew 13.44-52:

>>A man may buy gold too dear, but not this
>>Pearl of great price.

Nigel

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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:29:14 +0000

> right, but still, Wolfe should know it's Spenser with an S!)

Is the pulp being referenced exclusively American? King Kanoa's
English actually wouldn't be too out-of-place in some English novels.
Consider Lord Peter Wimsey's parody / epitome of that sort of chatty
Brit in Dorothy Sayers' novels. Or the two cricket fans in Hitchcock's
film The Lady Vanishes (who reappear in some non-Hitchcock films).

>>From a website on names for children:
The boy's name Kanoa \k(a)-noa\ is pronounced ka-NOH-ah. It is of
Hawaiian origin, and its meaning is "the free one."

I remember one interview where Wolfe discussed the importance of
freedom in AEG and how Gid may be "the most free of all."

-Matt

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:45:34 +0000

Matthew Keeley wrote:

>>Is the pulp being referenced exclusively American?
>>King Kanoa's English actually wouldn't be too
>>out-of-place in some English novels. Consider
>>Lord Peter Wimsey's parody / epitome of that sort
>>of chatty Brit in Dorothy Sayers' novels. Or the
>>two cricket fans in Hitchcock's film The Lady
>>Vanishes (who reappear in some non-Hitchcock films).

The two cricket fans in "The Lady Vanishes" are called Charters and
Caldicott.

Your point about the exagerated speech patterns in British literature and
films of the period is well made, though my impression remains that Wolfe is
primarily referencing American models in AEG.

>>I remember one interview where Wolfe discussed
>>the importance of freedom in AEG and how Gid may
>>be "the most free of all."

Can you remember which interview this was?

Nigel

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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:28:22 +0000

> Can you remember which interview this was?

No, and it's driving me nuts. I don't think I hallucinated it, but not
having much luck with Google at the moment.

-Matt