{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6291", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6291, "subject": "Seawrack and the Mother", "messages": 72, "voices": 12, "first": "2012-09-18T03:32:39+00:00", "last": "2012-10-04T13:12:13+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T03:32:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm re-reading Short Sun and I've become fully convinced of something\nI previously suspected. When Horn finds fresh blood on his boat he\nthinks of the woman he shot on the pirate ship, but dismisses the \nthought of the injured woman being able to swim after him as silly.\n\nBut as we later learn, a siren/mermaid, even a one-armed one, would \nbe capable of such a feat. So I do think that woman was Seawrack and\nthat she lost her arm due to Horn's shot. The idea is supported later\nwhen Horn finds a large branched piece of driftwood and he thinks he\nsees a pale face beneath it, but again dismisses the idea as silly.\n\nFurthermore, I think the pirate ship, which is colored black in every \nsingle part of it, is actually the Mother. Seawrack is probably an \noutgrowth of her, similar to the human figure we later see above the \nMother and similar to the undine-like growths we see much later on Great \nScylla.\n\nBefore Horn actually meets Seawrack, he hears what he identifies\nas The Mother's song. He compares it to the sound of an instrument \ncalled Molpe's Dulcimer. This demonstrates a connection of the Mother\nnot only to Great Scylla (and Abaia) but also to the gods of the Whorl.\n(not to mention earth's siren/mermaid legends)\n\nA hesitation I had on this theory is that Horn tells us that the woman\non the pirate ship was shooting at him. If the black pirate ship is \nreally the Mother and the woman an outgrowth, how could it shoot at him?\nThen it finally hit me: the story of the Naviscaput. This involves a \ngiant sea creature (Abaia and/or Erebus) whose protruding head above \nthe waves takes the form of a ship with a turret and gun. There is a nice\nweb of connections between these giant sea creatures for me.\n\nThe fact of Abaia and Erebus being given a male gender does nothing to \ndisconnect them from the Mother and Great Scylla. I think we are given \nample hints by Wolfe to understand that such asexual superhuman beings \n(as for Tzadkiel and for Biblical angels and demons) do not really have \ngender and only get one assigned to them when they are described in human \nlegends or when they take human form. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<50586898.7030907@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-18T12:27:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/17/2012 11:32 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nI'm re-reading Short Sun and I've become fully convinced of something\nI previously suspected. When Horn finds fresh blood on his boat he\nthinks of the woman he shot on the pirate ship, but dismisses the\nthought of the injured woman being able to swim after him as silly.\n\nBut as we later learn, a siren/mermaid, even a one-armed one, would\nbe capable of such a feat. So I do think that woman was Seawrack and\nthat she lost her arm due to Horn's shot. The idea is supported later\nwhen Horn finds a large branched piece of driftwood and he thinks he\nsees a pale face beneath it, but again dismisses the idea as silly.\n\nFurthermore, I think the pirate ship, which is colored black in every\nsingle part of it, is actually the Mother. Seawrack is probably an\noutgrowth of her, similar to the human figure we later see above the\nMother and similar to the undine-like growths we see much later on Great\nScylla.\n\nBefore Horn actually meets Seawrack, he hears what he identifies\nas The Mother's song. He compares it to the sound of an instrument\ncalled Molpe's Dulcimer. This demonstrates a connection of the Mother\nnot only to Great Scylla (and Abaia) but also to the gods of the Whorl.\n(not to mention earth's siren/mermaid legends)\n\nA hesitation I had on this theory is that Horn tells us that the woman\non the pirate ship was shooting at him. If the black pirate ship is\nreally the Mother and the woman an outgrowth, how could it shoot at him?\nThen it finally hit me: the story of the Naviscaput. This involves a\ngiant sea creature (Abaia and/or Erebus) whose protruding head above\nthe waves takes the form of a ship with a turret and gun. There is a nice\nweb of connections between these giant sea creatures for me.\n\nThe fact of Abaia and Erebus being given a male gender does nothing to\ndisconnect them from the Mother and Great Scylla. I think we are given\nample hints by Wolfe to understand that such asexual superhuman beings\n(as for Tzadkiel and for Biblical angels and demons) do not really have\ngender and only get one assigned to them when they are described in human\nlegends or when they take human form. \t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I went through the same steps: I agree that Seawrack came from the \npirate ship and that the pirate ship is the Mother. The shooting at Horn \n(if that's what it was) disrupts that theory, but if we take seriously \nthe Naviscaput form of Abaia, then there can be no doubt of a blood \nrelation between him and the Mother.\n\nBut I always find it hard to accept the Naviscaput thing anyway, so I \nhad to stop there. If Wolfe is serious, then the Mother carries at least \na five-pounder in her bow! If he is making a joke, then he has carried \nit remarkably far. Both are possible, especially since he never really \nforces the image on us: the Naviscaput is unnamed and is seen in what \nfeels like a dream sequence, and the pirate ship's identity is never \nconfirmed. So perhaps the physiology of a man-of-war type creature that \ncan fire slugs doesn't really need to be definitively worked out to \n\"believe.\" The connections are enough." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058744C.9050005@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T13:17:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50586898.7030907@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T15:55:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058744C.9050005@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\n? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50589BCD.40902@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-09-18T16:05:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I cannot agree. It is often the case that your conjectures kill other \nimportant elements\nof the plot, for example, Babbie's guilt when Seawrack comes again (it \nis clearly\ndescribed). If it is not Babbie who mutulated Seawrack first time, when \nshe tried to\nget into the sloop when Horn was absent, why is Babbie guilty? All this \ngoes into\nnothing.\n\nSergei Soloviev" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nI'm re-reading Short Sun and I've become fully convinced of something\nI previously suspected. When Horn finds fresh blood on his boat he\nthinks of the woman he shot on the pirate ship, but dismisses the \nthought of the injured woman being able to swim after him as silly.\n\nBut as we later learn, a siren/mermaid, even a one-armed one, would \nbe capable of such a feat. So I do think that woman was Seawrack and\nthat she lost her arm due to Horn's shot. The idea is supported later\nwhen Horn finds a large branched piece of driftwood and he thinks he\nsees a pale face beneath it, but again dismisses the idea as silly.\n\nFurthermore, I think the pirate ship, which is colored black in every \nsingle part of it, is actually the Mother. Seawrack is probably an \noutgrowth of her, similar to the human figure we later see above the \nMother and similar to the undine-like growths we see much later on Great \nScylla.\n\nBefore Horn actually meets Seawrack, he hears what he identifies\nas The Mother's song. He compares it to the sound of an instrument \ncalled Molpe's Dulcimer. This demonstrates a connection of the Mother\nnot only to Great Scylla (and Abaia) but also to the gods of the Whorl.\n(not to mention earth's siren/mermaid legends)\n\nA hesitation I had on this theory is that Horn tells us that the woman\non the pirate ship was shooting at him. If the black pirate ship is \nreally the Mother and the woman an outgrowth, how could it shoot at him?\nThen it finally hit me: the story of the Naviscaput. This involves a \ngiant sea creature (Abaia and/or Erebus) whose protruding head above \nthe waves takes the form of a ship with a turret and gun. There is a nice\nweb of connections between these giant sea creatures for me.\n\nThe fact of Abaia and Erebus being given a male gender does nothing to \ndisconnect them from the Mother and Great Scylla. I think we are given \nample hints by Wolfe to understand that such asexual superhuman beings \n(as for Tzadkiel and for Biblical angels and demons) do not really have \ngender and only get one assigned to them when they are described in human \nlegends or when they take human form. \t\t \t \t\t \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50589EB0.7090607@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-09-18T16:17:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is not only what narrator believes, it is supported by such details \nas the guilty\nbehaviour of Babbie when she comes again, and another detail, that\nthe narrator has seen the traces of intense bleeding on the sloop (blood\nwas licked out by Babbie, he thinks) corresponding to her first coming.\n\nIt indicates that the mutulation happened on the sloop (nobody can survive\nbleeding profusely for many hours - maybe days - we have to check\nthe chronology), and her stump was quickly healed by Mother.\n\nBy the way, as I remember, she mentions that Mother has sent\nher again, in spite of her fear. Fear - after the mutulation\ndue to Babbie.\n\nThe conjecture that Seawrack and pirate girl are the same\nmakes these details useless, and I think that such conjectures\nare born from disrespect to the text - as if one can just forget the details\ncarefully set by the author.\n\nSergei Soloviev" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nAnt?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true.\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058B8F9.7030905@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T18:10:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote (18-09-2012 16:55):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "? If her arm has been torn off, it has been torn off. Torn off. Not shot. \nTorn off. You might as well posit that she didn't lose her arm at all and \nit's all in the narrator's head.\nThat's of course not entering all the other bits (what would an aquatic \ncreature like Seawrack doing in a boat, etc)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058C18C.6030304@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-18T18:46:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right. He doesn't necessarily understand Babby yet, and wouldn't want to \nbelieve that he did it himself, although he may suspect it (he expresses \nguilty feelings regarding her)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 11:55 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nAnt?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058C66F.4030702@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-18T19:07:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058B8F9.7030905@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm sorry, but how does a stump from a limb torn off by teeth look \ndifferent from a stump from a limb torn off by a shot?\n\nI think it would be more profitable, if we are to consider Lee's theory, \nto determine things like whether Horn's gun was capable of such a thing, \nand how Seawrack's physiology would respond to a shot in the first \nplace, and what effects it would have had on Babbie. I think it unlikely \nthat Horn was carrying a gun big enough to do this to a human arm.\n\nBut the larger point is that once again we have two parallel \nplausibilities and little help from the narrator. We also have a plain \nindeterminacy: if Seawrack was not the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe \nput them so close together? What happened to the girl and where did \nSeawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time with his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie attacked Seawrack \nbecause he recognized her as the pirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her \nin the arm, Babbie would have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn \nit off defending the boat. Her arm could have suffered both injuries \nwithout messing up anything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, \nwhose perspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his \nreaction to Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get \non the boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 2:10 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote (18-09-2012 16:55):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "? If her arm has been torn off, it has been torn off. Torn off. Not \nshot. Torn off. You might as well posit that she didn't lose her arm \nat all and it's all in the narrator's head.\nThat's of course not entering all the other bits (what would an \naquatic creature like Seawrack doing in a boat, etc).\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T19:16:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058C66F.4030702@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: if we take seriously the Naviscaput form of Abaia, then there can be no doubt of a blood \nrelation between him and the Mother. But I always find it hard to accept the Naviscaput thing anyway, so I \nhad to stop there. If Wolfe is serious, then the Mother carries at least a five-pounder in her bow!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, The Naviscaput story appears as a dreamy legend so having its head serve as a ship armed with a \ncannon seemed to be an imaginary, invented part of the story to me. Now that the Mother may be doing\nsomething similar I have to wonder.\n\nThe bombadier beetle is able to produce a biological combustion using a peroxide and enzyme mixture. I've\nbeen shooting water and air pressure rockets with my sons recently. It is stunning how much thrust you can\nget (600 feet/200m high and out of sight in an instant) on a rocket using just the power of a bicycle pump.\n\nAs big as the Naviscaput ship is for a living creature, Wolfe makes it clear the vast majority of its bulk\nis below water level. Given such size it is conceivable such a creature could produce cannon-like ballistics\nvia biological structures.\n\nThis size issue ties into my next insight (apolgies if the idea had been posted before; I don't remember it).\n\nHorn encounters an unexpected green island on his journey. He decides to stop to collect some water. He sees\n(what he thinks are) some small trees in the distance but he discovers that the green of the island is due\nto a covering of salt-water seaweed. He treks inland to what he thinks is a freshwater pond but finds it is\nsaltwater. The clues seem to suggest the island had been recently swamped by a huge storm (which Horn didn't\nencounter)....or...that it is an island newly risen from the ocean. This second possibility suggests to a\nsecond-time reader that the island might really be, in fact, the Mother. \n\nWolfe doesn't give the reader time to ponder this mystery as Horn and Babbie are immediately overwhelmed as\na section of the green seaweed becomes a giant devil fish which tries to eat Horn. They manage to kill it\nit through a combination of the slug gun, Babbie's attack and Horn's knife. Given the previous suspicion, I \ntake this supposedly land-borne fish to be, in fact, a detached portion of the Mother, trying to do what the \n\"pirate ship\" was earlier unable to do. I think the fact that Horn first (knowingly) encounters Seawrack when \nhe returns to his boat supports the idea that the island might be the Mother." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sergei Soloviev: I cannot agree. It is often the case that your conjectures kill other \nimportant elements of the plot, for example, Babbie's guilt when Seawrack comes again (it \nis clearly described). If it is not Babbie who mutulated Seawrack first time, when \nshe tried to get into the sloop when Horn was absent, why is Babbie guilty?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I disagree in this case. I am only interested in conjectures which kill one way of interpreting the plot\nif they bring to life other, more holistic and integrated interpretations. And given Wolfe's repeated and\ndecades-spanning use of unreliable narrators, I do not think assumptions of narrator veracity should always \nbe taken as the most compelling evidence for what is \"really\" going on.\n\nIn this case, perhaps a discussion of Babbie is in order. Given the entire text of all three Short Sun books\nI do not see Babbie as a simple gift pet from Mucor. I see him as an avatar or in some way imbued with the\nessence of a god (Phaea is an obvious guess, but the gods get reshuffled in the Long to Short Sun transition).\nHis duty is to protect Horn and perhaps his quest.\n\nI think Horn is like Severian (who not coincidentally is described as a contruction of horn and boiled leather).\nThey are both like Odysseus or Hercules or other Greek heroes who are caught between warring gods as they\npursue their quests across their worlds.\n\nI don't know if the Mother's initial attacks against Horn were specifically against him or just (as Seawrack\ndescribes) an attempt to make another meal of a drowned sailor. But I think that as the Mother becomes aware\nof Babbie, she realizes she is attacking a guy under the protection of another god and she changes and softens\nher approach. Hence, Seawrack. \n\nRegarding Babbie's apparent guilt over Seawrack, I dunno. It sounds familiar but I was reading ahead and couldn't\nfind where that is described. Seawrack is initially afraid of Babbie. But even if it was Babbie who removed \nSeawrack's arm rather than Horn's shot, I don't see how that changes things much. It still seems likely that \nSeawrack was on the \"pirate ship\" which was The Mother and had been following Horn's ship for a while before\ntaking permanent residence.\n\nGiven all the talk of Seawrack's gold jewelry as a dowry price it seems clear to me that she is, like Babbie,\na gift to Horn from a god. Is she also meant as a protector? Horn makes it clear he suspects the ultimate goals \nof the Mother far more than he suspects Babbie. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058CDB6.1090807@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-18T19:38:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/18/2012 3:16 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff: if we take seriously the Naviscaput form of Abaia, then there can be no doubt of a blood\nrelation between him and the Mother. But I always find it hard to accept the Naviscaput thing anyway, so I\nhad to stop there. If Wolfe is serious, then the Mother carries at least a five-pounder in her bow!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, The Naviscaput story appears as a dreamy legend so having its head serve as a ship armed with a\ncannon seemed to be an imaginary, invented part of the story to me. Now that the Mother may be doing\nsomething similar I have to wonder.\n\nThe bombadier beetle is able to produce a biological combustion using a peroxide and enzyme mixture. I've\nbeen shooting water and air pressure rockets with my sons recently. It is stunning how much thrust you can\nget (600 feet/200m high and out of sight in an instant) on a rocket using just the power of a bicycle pump.\n\nAs big as the Naviscaput ship is for a living creature, Wolfe makes it clear the vast majority of its bulk\nis below water level. Given such size it is conceivable such a creature could produce cannon-like ballistics\nvia biological structures.\n\nThis size issue ties into my next insight (apolgies if the idea had been posted before; I don't remember it).\n\nHorn encounters an unexpected green island on his journey. He decides to stop to collect some water. He sees\n(what he thinks are) some small trees in the distance but he discovers that the green of the island is due\nto a covering of salt-water seaweed. He treks inland to what he thinks is a freshwater pond but finds it is\nsaltwater. The clues seem to suggest the island had been recently swamped by a huge storm (which Horn didn't\nencounter)....or...that it is an island newly risen from the ocean. This second possibility suggests to a\nsecond-time reader that the island might really be, in fact, the Mother.\n\nWolfe doesn't give the reader time to ponder this mystery as Horn and Babbie are immediately overwhelmed as\na section of the green seaweed becomes a giant devil fish which tries to eat Horn. They manage to kill it\nit through a combination of the slug gun, Babbie's attack and Horn's knife. Given the previous suspicion, I\ntake this supposedly land-borne fish to be, in fact, a detached portion of the Mother, trying to do what the\n\"pirate ship\" was earlier unable to do. I think the fact that Horn first (knowingly) encounters Seawrack when\nhe returns to his boat supports the idea that the island might be the Mother." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Sergei Soloviev: I cannot agree. It is often the case that your conjectures kill other\nimportant elements of the plot, for example, Babbie's guilt when Seawrack comes again (it\nis clearly described). If it is not Babbie who mutulated Seawrack first time, when\nshe tried to get into the sloop when Horn was absent, why is Babbie guilty?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I disagree in this case. I am only interested in conjectures which kill one way of interpreting the plot\nif they bring to life other, more holistic and integrated interpretations. And given Wolfe's repeated and\ndecades-spanning use of unreliable narrators, I do not think assumptions of narrator veracity should always\nbe taken as the most compelling evidence for what is \"really\" going on.\n\nIn this case, perhaps a discussion of Babbie is in order. Given the entire text of all three Short Sun books\nI do not see Babbie as a simple gift pet from Mucor. I see him as an avatar or in some way imbued with the\nessence of a god (Phaea is an obvious guess, but the gods get reshuffled in the Long to Short Sun transition).\nHis duty is to protect Horn and perhaps his quest.\n\nI think Horn is like Severian (who not coincidentally is described as a contruction of horn and boiled leather).\nThey are both like Odysseus or Hercules or other Greek heroes who are caught between warring gods as they\npursue their quests across their worlds.\n\nI don't know if the Mother's initial attacks against Horn were specifically against him or just (as Seawrack\ndescribes) an attempt to make another meal of a drowned sailor. But I think that as the Mother becomes aware\nof Babbie, she realizes she is attacking a guy under the protection of another god and she changes and softens\nher approach. Hence, Seawrack.\n\nRegarding Babbie's apparent guilt over Seawrack, I dunno. It sounds familiar but I was reading ahead and couldn't\nfind where that is described. Seawrack is initially afraid of Babbie. But even if it was Babbie who removed\nSeawrack's arm rather than Horn's shot, I don't see how that changes things much. It still seems likely that\nSeawrack was on the \"pirate ship\" which was The Mother and had been following Horn's ship for a while before\ntaking permanent residence.\n\nGiven all the talk of Seawrack's gold jewelry as a dowry price it seems clear to me that she is, like Babbie,\na gift to Horn from a god. Is she also meant as a protector? Horn makes it clear he suspects the ultimate goals\nof the Mother far more than he suspects Babbie." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think that's the best analysis of the motives of the various players \nI've read so far. And it explains the shift from pirate ship to \nSeawrack, especially if Babbie is really more than he seems. And he \nalways did seem so, even before he absorbed Horn---after all, not every \nanimal can absorb a human soul.\n\nAs for the Naviscaput, you're thinking exactly what I was thinking. The \nMother clearly has all sorts of chambers within her. She would have \nevolved pressure/pressurizing controls and one could easily imagine her \npumping out a shot (even just seawater) at a small boat. Of course, \nthere is the story of the Student too." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "markjmillman at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T19:49:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058C66F.4030702@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Folks," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday 18 September 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:\n. . . But the larger point is that once again we have two\nparallel plausibilities and little help from the narrator.\nWe also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was\nnot the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so\nclose together? What happened to the girl and where\ndid Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time\nwith his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie\nattacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the\npirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie\nwould have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn\nit off defending the boat. Her arm could have suffered\nboth injuries without messing up anything [this last is\nin partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on\nthis scene baffles me though I understand his reaction\nto Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she\nwanted to get on the boat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And later, Lee Berman wrote (not as a direct reply):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": ". . . Regarding Babbie's apparent guilt over Seawrack,\nI dunno. It sounds familiar but I was reading ahead and\ncouldn't find where that is described. Seawrack is ini-\ntially afraid of Babbie. But even if it was Babbie who re-\nmoved Seawrack's arm rather than Horn's shot, I don't\nsee how that changes things much. It still seems like-\nly that Seawrack was on the \"pirate ship\" which was\nThe Mother and had been following Horn's ship for a\nwhile before taking permanent residence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here's an alternative hypothesis that may explain all of the observed\nfacts, and may have the additional benefit of shedding light on\nSeawrack's name:\n\nThe pirate ship is just that: a pirate ship. (Whether the Mother may\nhave any influence over its crew or the crew's actions is another\nquestion.) Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate, who\n(or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her\nagent. The first time that Seawrack tries to climb on to Horn's\nsloop, Babbie attacks her (whether he recognizes her as the pirate\ngirl isn't important to this idea) and severs her arm. She returns to\nthe sea, where the Mother repairs Seawrack to the extent of sealing\nthe wound, and sends her back to Horn's sloop.\n\nGiven Seawrack's name, I suspect that Horn's shot killed the pirate\ngirl, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary that it did.\n\nBest,\n\nMark Millman" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5058DA1F.1090409@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-18T20:31:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 3:49 PM, Mark Millman wrote:\nFolks,\n\nOn Tuesday 18 September 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": ". . . But the larger point is that once again we have two\nparallel plausibilities and little help from the narrator.\nWe also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was\nnot the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so\nclose together? What happened to the girl and where\ndid Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time\nwith his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie\nattacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the\npirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie\nwould have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn\nit off defending the boat. Her arm could have suffered\nboth injuries without messing up anything [this last is\nin partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on\nthis scene baffles me though I understand his reaction\nto Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she\nwanted to get on the boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And later, Lee Berman wrote (not as a direct reply):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": ". . . Regarding Babbie's apparent guilt over Seawrack,\nI dunno. It sounds familiar but I was reading ahead and\ncouldn't find where that is described. Seawrack is ini-\ntially afraid of Babbie. But even if it was Babbie who re-\nmoved Seawrack's arm rather than Horn's shot, I don't\nsee how that changes things much. It still seems like-\nly that Seawrack was on the \"pirate ship\" which was\nThe Mother and had been following Horn's ship for a\nwhile before taking permanent residence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Here's an alternative hypothesis that may explain all of the observed\nfacts, and may have the additional benefit of shedding light on\nSeawrack's name:\n\nThe pirate ship is just that: a pirate ship. (Whether the Mother may\nhave any influence over its crew or the crew's actions is another\nquestion.) Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate, who\n(or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her\nagent. The first time that Seawrack tries to climb on to Horn's\nsloop, Babbie attacks her (whether he recognizes her as the pirate\ngirl isn't important to this idea) and severs her arm. She returns to\nthe sea, where the Mother repairs Seawrack to the extent of sealing\nthe wound, and sends her back to Horn's sloop.\n\nGiven Seawrack's name, I suspect that Horn's shot killed the pirate\ngirl, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary that it did.\n\nBest,\n\nMark Millman" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this is the simplest explanation so far. Of course it leaves the \nNaviscaput element high and dry, so to speak, but I won't miss it.\n\nIt explains Mother's motivations all along; it separates her from the \npirates while identifying Seawrack with the pirate girl. Exactly what \nwas needed." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348002546.47326.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T21:09:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058CDB6.1090807@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Tue, 9/18/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\n\n\n?And it explains the shift from pirate ship to \nSeawrack, especially if Babbie is really more than he seems. And he \nalways did seem so, even before he absorbed Horn---after all, not every \nanimal can absorb a human soul.\n\nI have my own ideas about the island, but I just wanted to throw out something Windcloud or whatever his name is says much much later at the trial in Dorp: that both Silk and Horn have stayed in his house and this is how he got to know them. \n\nA huswife is a housewife. Thus, Windcloud's house might be a hus." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348002661.18235.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-18T21:11:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I rather fancy that the pirate girl became the seaweed multilimbed thing that rises from the depths, but I need to check their proximity in the text (recombination hybrid of trees/seaweed from the island and the body of the pirate girl). Does the four armed thing come up AFTER the pirate girl falls in the water? Is that near in time? Don't remember now.\n\n--- On Tue, 9/18/12, Mark Millman wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Mark Millman \nSubject: Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 12:49 PM\n\n\nFolks," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday 18 September 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:\n. . . But the larger point is that once again we have two\nparallel plausibilities and little help from the narrator.\nWe also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was\nnot the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so\nclose together? What happened to the girl and where\ndid Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time\nwith his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie\nattacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the\npirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie\nwould have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn\nit off defending the boat. Her arm could have suffered\nboth injuries without messing up anything [this last is\nin partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on\nthis scene baffles me though I understand his reaction\nto Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she\nwanted to get on the boat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And later, Lee Berman wrote (not as a direct reply):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": ". . . Regarding Babbie's apparent guilt over Seawrack,\nI dunno. It sounds familiar but I was reading ahead and\ncouldn't find where that is described. Seawrack is ini-\ntially afraid of Babbie. But even if it was Babbie who re-\nmoved Seawrack's arm rather than Horn's shot, I don't\nsee how that changes things much. It still seems like-\nly that Seawrack was on the \"pirate ship\" which was\nThe Mother and had been following Horn's ship for a\nwhile before taking permanent residence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here's an alternative hypothesis that may explain all of the observed\nfacts, and may have the additional benefit of shedding light on\nSeawrack's name:\n\nThe pirate ship is just that: a pirate ship. (Whether the Mother may\nhave any influence over its crew or the crew's actions is another\nquestion.)? Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate, who\n(or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her\nagent. The first time that Seawrack tries to climb on to Horn's\nsloop, Babbie attacks her (whether he recognizes her as the pirate\ngirl isn't important to this idea) and severs her arm. She returns to\nthe sea, where the Mother repairs Seawrack to the extent of sealing\nthe wound, and sends her back to Horn's sloop.\n\nGiven Seawrack's name, I suspect that Horn's shot killed the pirate\ngirl, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary that it did.\n\nBest,\n\nMark Millman" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T02:43:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1348002661.18235.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mark Millman: alternate hypothesis- The pirate ship is just that: \na pirate ship....Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate, \nwho (or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her \nagent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At first glance I can see why this hypothesis seems more parsimonious.\nBut I don't think it accounts for much that is in the text. Seawrack\ndoes seem to feed Horn two storylines. One jibes with Mark's hypothesis-\nthat she was born a regular human and adopted by the Mother. But so much\nelse of what Seawrack says suggests she has spent most/all of her life with \nthe Mother, eating fish and drowned sailors, being cloistered and comforted\nwithin her massive body.\n\nIf Mark's hypothesis was correct, all that backstory, maternal connection\nand sense of child development would have had to take place in the space of \nthe few days between when the pirate girl was shot and Seawrack joins Horn. \nNot to mention that in the same short time, the Mother would have had to revamp\nthe girl's body to possess working gills and imbue her with mystic singing\nabilities and superhuman swimming abilities. If she could do all that in a\nfew days, why not also grow back Seawrack's arm?\n\nHorn pointedly notes how foreign and exotic Seawrack's face looks. I don't\nthink she is from Whorl stock. Moreover, Horn speculates on how the Vanished\nPeople must have worshipped this Mother/sea goddess. He says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that they\nwould love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my own \nrace...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think all the above supports the hypothesis that the Mother grew Seawrack\nfrom the start rather than quickly reforming an existing human body. I feel \nMark's hypothesis serves mostly to undercut the idea that the pirate ship might \nbe akin to the Naviscaput. But why would you want to do that?\n\nThe Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who, like\nSeawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make an\neffort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of the \npirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence.\n\nAs far as Seawrack's real name, I think it is a great mystery. My best guess is\nthat it is English/Latin wordplay on the part of Wolfe. I think the similar-\nsounding name Wolfe is hinting at is \"Siren\" or \"Sirenia\" (the genus name of\nmanatees). It makes sense that Vironese Horn would find either incomprehensible \nand give her a seaweed plant name which sounds similar." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Does the four armed thing come up AFTER the pirate girl falls in the \nwater? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fairly long after. Horn's hypothesis is that the multi-limbed crusted thing is a\nNeighbor something along the lines of Midas. A god gave him a curse disguised\nas a blessing in the form of eternal life. Horn invites us to come up with a\nbetter theory. I have one (not sure if it is better)- perhaps this is the \n\"woman of the Vanished People\" that the Mother previously formed to seduce\nthem.\n\nThe creature is far stronger than Babbie but seems afraid of the storm. It\napparently responds to Seawrack's instructions to leave them alone. Because \nshe is the Mother's agent? Not sure which hypothesis that supports. Maybe mine. \nI dunno.\n\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<52246F58-0436-41B5-80AA-AF2F19CFE5F7@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T02:59:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5058C66F.4030702@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 18/09/2012, ?s 20:07, David Stockhoff escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm sorry, but how does a stump from a limb torn off by teeth look different from a stump from a limb torn off by a shot?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The latter kind doesn't exist in that context." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it would be more profitable, if we are to consider Lee's theory, to determine things like whether Horn's gun was capable of such a thing," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He did fire the shot. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and how Seawrack's physiology would respond to a shot in the first place," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd be more comfortable with Seawrack having an alien physiology if she had responded to the injury to her arm differently from she did, which was the way any human does, except possibly for speed of healing and lack of infection. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and what effects it would have had on Babbie. I think it unlikely that Horn was carrying a gun big enough to do this to a human arm." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And doing no other damage. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But the larger point is that once again we have two parallel plausibilities" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We can always have a number of parallel possibilities at about any point in those books. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and little help from the narrator." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What would constitute more than little help, in your opinion?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was not the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so close together? What happened to the girl and where did Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time with his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie attacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the pirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie would have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn it off defending the boat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not a problem at all. I was just pointing out the need for something other than the shot. \n\nThough I find Seawrack being the pirate woman (not girl) solves nothing, but I wouldn't have bothered to talk only to say that.\n\nI find the suggestion that Seawrack's first landing on the boat was an attack, rather than merely seen as such by Babbie, important. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Her arm could have suffered both injuries without messing up anything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his reaction to Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get on the boat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T03:03:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<52246F58-0436-41B5-80AA-AF2F19CFE5F7@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Obs: I'm not too fond of a Mother who can emerge as a ship and spout off Seawracks and yet can't repair Seawrack's arm. Nor do I understand what would an aquatic creature like Seawrack, used to eat corpses underwater, be doing posing as a pirate on a ship, but that's another matter." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5059393D.1000304@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-19T03:17:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<52246F58-0436-41B5-80AA-AF2F19CFE5F7@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 10:59 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nNo dia 18/09/2012, ?s 20:07, David Stockhoff escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'm sorry, but how does a stump from a limb torn off by teeth look different from a stump from a limb torn off by a shot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The latter kind doesn't exist in that context." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think it would be more profitable, if we are to consider Lee's theory, to determine things like whether Horn's gun was capable of such a thing,\nHe did fire the shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and how Seawrack's physiology would respond to a shot in the first place,\nI'd be more comfortable with Seawrack having an alien physiology if she had responded to the injury to her arm differently from she did, which was the way any human does, except possibly for speed of healing and lack of infection." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and what effects it would have had on Babbie. I think it unlikely that Horn was carrying a gun big enough to do this to a human arm." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And doing no other damage." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But the larger point is that once again we have two parallel plausibilities\nWe can always have a number of parallel possibilities at about any point in those books." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and little help from the narrator." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What would constitute more than little help, in your opinion?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "We also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was not the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so close together? What happened to the girl and where did Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time with his characters.\n\nFurthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie attacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the pirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie would have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn it off defending the boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not a problem at all. I was just pointing out the need for something other than the shot.\n\nThough I find Seawrack being the pirate woman (not girl) solves nothing, but I wouldn't have bothered to talk only to say that.\n\nI find the suggestion that Seawrack's first landing on the boat was an attack, rather than merely seen as such by Babbie, important." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Her arm could have suffered both injuries without messing up anything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his reaction to Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get on the boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Injury." } ] }, { "message_id": "<50593F0F.6070008@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-19T03:42:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 10:43 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Mark Millman: alternate hypothesis- The pirate ship is just that:\na pirate ship....Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate,\nwho (or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her\nagent." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At first glance I can see why this hypothesis seems more parsimonious.\nBut I don't think it accounts for much that is in the text. Seawrack\ndoes seem to feed Horn two storylines. One jibes with Mark's hypothesis-\nthat she was born a regular human and adopted by the Mother. But so much\nelse of what Seawrack says suggests she has spent most/all of her life with\nthe Mother, eating fish and drowned sailors, being cloistered and comforted\nwithin her massive body." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not a problem if the pirate woman's body is now inhabited by another \nbeing. Which would not be surprising. This is Wolfe, and it best \nexplains how the girl could become Seawrack so quickly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Mark's hypothesis was correct, all that backstory, maternal connection\nand sense of child development would have had to take place in the space of\nthe few days between when the pirate girl was shot and Seawrack joins Horn.\nNot to mention that in the same short time, the Mother would have had to revamp\nthe girl's body to possess working gills and imbue her with mystic singing\nabilities and superhuman swimming abilities. If she could do all that in a\nfew days, why not also grow back Seawrack's arm?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, except that when gods inhabit human bodies in Wolfe, they give \nthose bodies their godlike abilities. I don't see this as a problem: not \ngills, singing, swimming, or facial features. They are all minor. But if \nregrowing a limb is not the in possessor's power, it won't happen. On \nthe other hand, most human women would die in hours after getting a limb \ntorn or shot off. (Yes, a limb can get shot off if the gun is big \nenough. I don't think Horn's gun is.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Horn pointedly notes how foreign and exotic Seawrack's face looks. I don't\nthink she is from Whorl stock. Moreover, Horn speculates on how the Vanished\nPeople must have worshipped this Mother/sea goddess. He says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that they\nwould love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my own\nrace...." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think all the above supports the hypothesis that the Mother grew Seawrack\nfrom the start rather than quickly reforming an existing human body. I feel\nMark's hypothesis serves mostly to undercut the idea that the pirate ship might\nbe akin to the Naviscaput. But why would you want to do that?\n\nThe Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who, like\nSeawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make an\neffort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of the\npirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree that this is a difficult question. A separate pirate ship does \nlittle but provide a dead woman. The ship was mostly full of \nwomen---which the Naviscaput theory explains but nothing else does. But \nHorn told us there were pirates." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As far as Seawrack's real name, I think it is a great mystery. My best guess is\nthat it is English/Latin wordplay on the part of Wolfe. I think the similar-\nsounding name Wolfe is hinting at is \"Siren\" or \"Sirenia\" (the genus name of\nmanatees). It makes sense that Vironese Horn would find either incomprehensible\nand give her a seaweed plant name which sounds similar." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it's a small problem that Seawrack is clearly labeled a siren. \nSirens don't fall in love with one man---they lure and kill in series. \nAnother small issue is that sirens are not technically goddesses. But \nthis is semantics, and it seems Seawrack changed her ways with Horn. I'd \nguess she was in another body before the pirate woman's body came along." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5059A930.2060703@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T11:14:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5059393D.1000304@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote (19-09-2012 04:17):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/18/2012 10:59 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No dia 18/09/2012, ?s 20:07, David Stockhoff \nescreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Her arm could have suffered both injuries without messing up\nanything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, whose\nperspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his reaction\nto Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get on\nthe boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Why?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Injury." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You mean she originally wanted to get on the boat because she had received a\ngunshot? (And needed the be on the boat to recover, or something like that?)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5059B4F7.7070406@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-19T12:05:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5059A930.2060703@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/19/2012 7:14 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff wrote (19-09-2012 04:17):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/18/2012 10:59 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "No dia 18/09/2012, ?s 20:07, David Stockhoff \nescreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Her arm could have suffered both injuries without messing up\nanything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, whose\nperspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his reaction\nto Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get on\nthe boat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Why?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Injury." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You mean she originally wanted to get on the boat because she had \nreceived a\ngunshot? (And needed the be on the boat to recover, or something like \nthat?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That was my thought. Horn thinks it was revenge, but that's improbable \nif she had been shot badly enough to be knocked off the pirate sloop." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T12:12:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50593F0F.6070008@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So: this might be the thread I've read with the most avid interest. (But\nI've skipped and sketchily skimmed many.) My keen interest is not about\nseeing what theory works best. Rather, what amazes and delights me is that\n*some* such theory like those being proposed *must* be posited - Wolfe's\nfiction here clearly requires the reader to join him in the storytelling\nand, even more essentially, to join him in the work of building up the\nstoryworld. We all know he does this, so what's hitting me fresh? Well,\nfirst of all just a more full and palpable conviction that this is the\ncase. That goes a long ways. It is truly a literary wonder to see this\ndone at the scale and to the degree that Wolfe does it. One pauses and\nwonders and exults. And that leads to the next and more crucial thing\nthat's hitting me fresh here. It's that reading Wolfe *requires* an\nongoing imaginative and ludic (playful - as children 'play') communal\nexperience and participation - such as happens in part on this discussion\nboard.\n\nI'm interested in not only hermeneutic but *aesthetic* approaches to\nreading, and I see possibilities for that here in Wolfe. What all this\ninterpretive sparring is clearing the ground for is a deeper and more\n'playful' reading of his Solar Cycle, together in community. What I'm\nstruggling to say here is that we are together experiencing ourselves being\ninvited into *making Wolfe's Solar Cycle world together with him as an\nongoing project that outlasts the master craftsman himself*.\n\nHow might we go about this? You may be tempted to think we're doing that\nalready (and more than enough!) by our discussions here on this board. I\ndo not think it is enough, and really I do not think it is the actual work\nof co-world-building. It is only preliminary rubble removal and\nscaffolding construction and the like. Say we were to agree roughly on an\ninterpretation of the origin and nature of Seawrack. (A big 'say', I\nknow!) What would remain to do then, in an aesthetic and ludic approach,\nwould be to carefully and clearly write out just who and what she is in\nsolid prose. This would of course lead to cogently writing out all the\ncharacters and and flora and fauna and physics and metaphysics and so on\nthat connect to just this one character, simply in order to thoroughly\naccount for and explicate her. It's easy to see this task would be\nessentially infinite as each piece of writing connected to a myriad of\nothers.\n\nWhat form could such a project take? Well, I think many here would be\ninclined to take it in a gaming direction. I respect that, but I am not a\ngamer myself. A Solar Cycle gaming system of some variety would indeed be\nthe one thing in the world that could tempt me to change my lifestyle into\none of a gamer. But even then, it's just not going to happen for me\nlogistically and life circumstance-wise. I'm sure I'm not alone in this\namong Wolfe fans.\n\nMy own inclination would be to undertake the project as one of creative\nwriting, beginning to see a series of new stories emerging from writers,\neach piece bent toward fulfilling this world-building in cooperation with\nthe Solar Cycle 'Bible' that Wolfe has himself already written. This,\nhowever, like the gaming, is too narrow and of special interest.\n\nWhat then? Something like a descriptive and narrative encyclopaedic work\ncomes to mind. Michael Andre-Driussi has, of course, already begun massive\nwork on such a project. What I'm thinking of would be slightly different\nthough in the nature of the writing - something between the scholarly\napproach of Andre-Driussi and a more artistically descriptive approach. It\ncould also be more artistic visually with professional illustrations for\nmost of the entries, perhaps sometimes even a variety of visual\ninterpretations for just one entry (one can imagine there would be a\nvariety of artist's interpretations of Seawrack's unusual face, for\nexample). Plus, rather than in print, I would imagine this being a\ncontrolled internet site, like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy\nsite, say. (There could, of course, be various print editions that are\npublished from time to time, but none could ever be definitive and final by\nnature of the project.)\n\nSuch a project could easily be the base for many others: gaming, creative\nwriting, and so on (action figures and playsets?!). Indeed, it probably *\nshould* lead to this further 'play'.\n\nI'm just thinking out loud about the possibilities. It would probably take\nsome other form than I can imagine right now. And I'm sure most here would\nbe sceptical whether there could ever be enough agreement in interpretation\nto ever take it to this next phase. I'm more than a little sceptical of\nthat myself. But dreamers don't usually get bogged down by scepticism,\neven quite warranted scepticism.\n\nMy point is that we are being literarily 'called in to play' here. Will we\nanswer that call and create alongside Wolfe, filling out the world he has\nestablished for us? That has been my joy in reading this thread:\n experiencing, by means of the creativity of the various theories put\nforth, and by their accumulative effect, greater heights and depths and\nbreadth in Wolfe's worlds than I have previously known. My imagination has\nliterally gone on a further journey than what Wolfe initially provided in\nhis own prose. And it works! It feels 'real', solid, substantial, not\nmerely a temporary and ephemeral flight of fancy. My engagement with\nWolfe's works, and with the *worlds* those works create, is going to be\npermanently changed by this, changed for the better, developed, enriched,\nevolved. (I could easily get into 'virtue ethics' and the like here and\ndescribe how this is making me a 'better person', etc., so that a project\nlike the one I'm suggesting actually promotes 'world peace' and so on. No\njoke!)\n\nThis 'further imagining' is something that happens in most works of\nspeculative fiction, I know, especially epic ones (LotR being a seminal\ncase). But there's something unique about the way Wolfe has drawn the\nreader into this further imagining of his world, something to do with\nactually *playing* there in creativity, specifically the creativity of\nworld-building.\n\nI can't help but think this is something of a sort of sacramental way of\nreading Wolfe, a ritual sort of way of employing the signs and symbols he\nhas provided for us in order to always be going 'further up and further in'\n(to borrow from another myth-maker), both making and inhabiting his\nsecondary world.\n\nAn intense but highly enjoyable academic essay on this ludic, invitational,\nworld-building way of writing and responding to fiction can be seen in this\nessay by Andrew Ferguson (linked below). It is about the fiction of R. A.\nLafferty (whom Wolfe called a genius and the most original writer from\nAmerica and who Neil Gaiman thinks very highly of and has attempted to\nemulate). If you can wrap your head round the jargon, it very effectively\ndescribes in more technical terms what I'm trying to say here and I think\nit would apply in interesting new ways to Wolfe's fiction. (If there are\nany literature students, profs, academics, etc. in our midst, this is\nseriously a very good tool for Wolfe interpretation, I think.)\n\n*Lafferty and His\nWorld\n* by Andrew Ferguson\n\nIf you've made it this far, you are a legend. Thank you for listening to\nthe arcane mystic in the group!\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 4:42 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\nOn 9/18/2012 10:43 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " Mark Millman: alternate hypothesis- The pirate ship is just that:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "a pirate ship....Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate,\nwho (or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her\nagent." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At first glance I can see why this hypothesis seems more parsimonious.\nBut I don't think it accounts for much that is in the text. Seawrack\ndoes seem to feed Horn two storylines. One jibes with Mark's hypothesis-\nthat she was born a regular human and adopted by the Mother. But so much\nelse of what Seawrack says suggests she has spent most/all of her life\nwith\nthe Mother, eating fish and drowned sailors, being cloistered and\ncomforted\nwithin her massive body." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not a problem if the pirate woman's body is now inhabited by another\nbeing. Which would not be surprising. This is Wolfe, and it best explains\nhow the girl could become Seawrack so quickly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If Mark's hypothesis was correct, all that backstory, maternal connection\nand sense of child development would have had to take place in the space\nof\nthe few days between when the pirate girl was shot and Seawrack joins\nHorn.\nNot to mention that in the same short time, the Mother would have had to\nrevamp\nthe girl's body to possess working gills and imbue her with mystic singing\nabilities and superhuman swimming abilities. If she could do all that in a\nfew days, why not also grow back Seawrack's arm?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, except that when gods inhabit human bodies in Wolfe, they give those\nbodies their godlike abilities. I don't see this as a problem: not gills,\nsinging, swimming, or facial features. They are all minor. But if regrowing\na limb is not the in possessor's power, it won't happen. On the other hand,\nmost human women would die in hours after getting a limb torn or shot off.\n(Yes, a limb can get shot off if the gun is big enough. I don't think\nHorn's gun is.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Horn pointedly notes how foreign and exotic Seawrack's face looks. I don't\nthink she is from Whorl stock. Moreover, Horn speculates on how the\nVanished\nPeople must have worshipped this Mother/sea goddess. He says:\n\n She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that\nthey\nwould love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my\nown\nrace...." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think all the above supports the hypothesis that the Mother grew\nSeawrack\nfrom the start rather than quickly reforming an existing human body. I\nfeel\nMark's hypothesis serves mostly to undercut the idea that the pirate ship\nmight\nbe akin to the Naviscaput. But why would you want to do that?\n\nThe Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who,\nlike\nSeawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make\nan\neffort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of\nthe\npirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree that this is a difficult question. A separate pirate ship does\nlittle but provide a dead woman. The ship was mostly full of women---which\nthe Naviscaput theory explains but nothing else does. But Horn told us\nthere were pirates." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As far as Seawrack's real name, I think it is a great mystery. My best\nguess is\nthat it is English/Latin wordplay on the part of Wolfe. I think the\nsimilar-\nsounding name Wolfe is hinting at is \"Siren\" or \"Sirenia\" (the genus name\nof\nmanatees). It makes sense that Vironese Horn would find either\nincomprehensible\nand give her a seaweed plant name which sounds similar." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it's a small problem that Seawrack is clearly labeled a siren.\nSirens don't fall in love with one man---they lure and kill in series.\nAnother small issue is that sirens are not technically goddesses. But this\nis semantics, and it seems Seawrack changed her ways with Horn. I'd guess\nshe was in another body before the pirate woman's body came along.\n\n______________________________**_________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5059F4DC.2020602@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-09-19T16:37:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's interesting that I mostly agree with this mail.\n\nBy the way, the creature you mention reminded me about\ncertain strange parallelism of Blue/Green world and the\nworld of Urth and its green moon (there were long discussions\nof that, but I want to mention only one point here).\n\nThe creature seems to be related in some \"metaphysical\" way to Baldanders\nafter he became aquatic.\n\nSergei" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Mark Millman: alternate hypothesis- The pirate ship is just that: \na pirate ship....Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate, \nwho (or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her \nagent.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At first glance I can see why this hypothesis seems more parsimonious.\nBut I don't think it accounts for much that is in the text. Seawrack\ndoes seem to feed Horn two storylines. One jibes with Mark's hypothesis-\nthat she was born a regular human and adopted by the Mother. But so much\nelse of what Seawrack says suggests she has spent most/all of her life with \nthe Mother, eating fish and drowned sailors, being cloistered and comforted\nwithin her massive body.\n\nIf Mark's hypothesis was correct, all that backstory, maternal connection\nand sense of child development would have had to take place in the space of \nthe few days between when the pirate girl was shot and Seawrack joins Horn. \nNot to mention that in the same short time, the Mother would have had to revamp\nthe girl's body to possess working gills and imbue her with mystic singing\nabilities and superhuman swimming abilities. If she could do all that in a\nfew days, why not also grow back Seawrack's arm?\n\nHorn pointedly notes how foreign and exotic Seawrack's face looks. I don't\nthink she is from Whorl stock. Moreover, Horn speculates on how the Vanished\nPeople must have worshipped this Mother/sea goddess. He says:\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that they\nwould love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my own \nrace....\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think all the above supports the hypothesis that the Mother grew Seawrack\nfrom the start rather than quickly reforming an existing human body. I feel \nMark's hypothesis serves mostly to undercut the idea that the pirate ship might \nbe akin to the Naviscaput. But why would you want to do that?\n\nThe Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who, like\nSeawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make an\neffort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of the \npirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence.\n\nAs far as Seawrack's real name, I think it is a great mystery. My best guess is\nthat it is English/Latin wordplay on the part of Wolfe. I think the similar-\nsounding name Wolfe is hinting at is \"Siren\" or \"Sirenia\" (the genus name of\nmanatees). It makes sense that Vironese Horn would find either incomprehensible \nand give her a seaweed plant name which sounds similar.\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc Aramini: Does the four armed thing come up AFTER the pirate girl falls in the \nwater? \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fairly long after. Horn's hypothesis is that the multi-limbed crusted thing is a\nNeighbor something along the lines of Midas. A god gave him a curse disguised\nas a blessing in the form of eternal life. Horn invites us to come up with a\nbetter theory. I have one (not sure if it is better)- perhaps this is the \n\"woman of the Vanished People\" that the Mother previously formed to seduce\nthem.\n\nThe creature is far stronger than Babbie but seems afraid of the storm. It\napparently responds to Seawrack's instructions to leave them alone. Because \nshe is the Mother's agent? Not sure which hypothesis that supports. Maybe mine. \nI dunno.\n\n \t\t \t \t\t \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4F30F83D2BBE45F1A05805F97F6F8671@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2012-09-19T23:24:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50593F0F.6070008@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: David Stockhoff " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/18/2012 10:43 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nThe Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who, like\nSeawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make an\neffort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of the\npirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don’t find a connection between the Naviscaput and Abaia very convincing. The Naviscaput lived in shallow water / shoals, doesn’t seem to much resemble Abaia and anyway is a long-dead creature of myth. The usual theory is that the story is a mash-up of the Minotaur and the Monitor, similar to the other story that combines the story of Romulus with The Jungle Book. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it's a small problem that Seawrack is clearly labeled a siren. \nSirens don't fall in love with one man---they lure and kill in series. \nAnother small issue is that sirens are not technically goddesses. But \nthis is semantics, and it seems Seawrack changed her ways with Horn. I'd \nguess she was in another body before the pirate woman's body came along." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "With regard to the habits and origins of Wolfean sirens, it may be worth noting that in _The Wizard Knight_, Able’s mother from Mythgartyr was made into a siren by a dragon, to lure seamen for him and his other servants to eat. She eventually poisoned herself.\n- Gerry Quinn\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-20T12:25:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<4F30F83D2BBE45F1A05805F97F6F8671@Rover>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sergei Soloviev: the creature you mention reminded me about certain strange parallelism \nof Blue/Green world and the world of Urth and its green moon (there were long discussions\nof that, but I want to mention only one point here). The creature seems to be related in some \n\"metaphysical\" way to Baldanders after he became aquatic." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting post. You got me thinking. Actually, I think the metaphysical connection might\nbe more to Severian, who ends the Sun series as an ocean-borne fish god. He is the human-\nshaped Oannes to the people of Ushas. Perhaps the crusted, multi-limbed thing was the \nNeighbor-shaped fish god to the Neighbors left on a flooded planet.\n\nWhich brings up the cynical consideration that Severian was duped into creating Ushas to \nmake a world more habitable to giant sea-going \"gods\". Perhaps the crusted, multi-limbed\ncreature was similarly duped into creating Blue (we know there are ruins under Blue's waves).\nI know Marc doesn't like this interpretation, but if GREEN is [like] Urth then perhaps\nBlue is [like] Ushas.\n\nI can imagine Seawrack getting rid of the creature by telling him, \"hey, the Mother has \nassigned ME to hook up with these new human residents. You are the wrong shape. You were created \nto hook up with the Neighbors, who left, not these new guys.\"\n\nWith regard to Baldanders, I see his metaphysical (not to mention physical) relationship to\nbe more to godlings. Throughout the Sun series, Wolfe hammers us over and over with the idea\nthat godhood is related to great size. From Abaia and Erebus to Tzadkiel to the Mother and\nGreat Scylla (perhaps even the fish in the Worl's lake) size is discussed and emphasized. If\nwe didn't quite catch that Baldanders' growth is transitioning him to the god-like status of\nthe megatherians, the very name \"godlings\" should lead our thoughts in that direction.\n\nI actually think Wolfe may be hitting us so hard with this concept as a way of justifying his\nprofessed personal belief that the ancient gods of our earth were \"real\" or had some sort of\nreality to them (i.e. they weren't just a product of ancient imaginations). Great size can \nconfer all sorts of superhuman, god-like attributes, from strength to longevity to the budding\noff of avatars, perhaps even to the creation of pressure-based biological ballistics as per \nthe discussion I recently had with David. (was Zeus a kind of giant electric eel? Heh) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-20T12:58:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: The Naviscaput lived in shallow water / shoals, doesn’t seem to much resemble Abaia \nand anyway is a long-dead creature of myth. The usual theory is that the story is a mash-up of \nthe Minotaur and the Monitor, similar to the other story that combines the story of Romulus with \nThe Jungle Book. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not shoals but deeply cut channels, iirc. We are never told or shown what Abaia looks like except\nthat he is the size of a mountain. That would seem to jibe with the Naviscaput whose head above\nthe water disguises a far greater bulk below. Anyway, it wasn't me who first made the comparison\nof the Naviscaput to Abaia, it was Severian.\n\nI think there can be an incorrect assumption that Abaia is a single creature in one deep-ocean\nlocation. I think that is incorrect partly because that isn't a very good vantage point to\ninterfere with human affairs as he does. Also because there are hints that Abaia resides in \nother places, including Lake Diuturna and Gyoll (as revealed in the story of the old boatman\nwho carried clams). Perhaps also beneath the earth under the cave of the man-apes?\n\nI think Wolfe gives us Tzadkiel to provide us with an archetype of what these giant creatures are\nlike: plural beings capable of budding off smaller pieces, which can take various shapes and sizes\nand thus be in more than one place at once. Sure Tzadkiel and his ilk are \"angels\" while Abaia and\nhis ilk (undines at least) are demons but that is more a reflection of their \"side\" in relation to\nthe human race. There are suggestions that Tzadkiel and Abaia, like angels and demons, are of the\nsame race. It's just that one group is fallen (to earth/urth).\n\n[thus I think all aliens residing on earth belong to the \"fallen\" category, including Inire and the\nCumaean, who seems to bear some connections to Echidna, imho]\n\nI think Wolfe's revelation that Barbatus and Famulimus have a watery, \"kelpie\" origin serves to\ninform us that the angels have the same origin as the devils inhabiting Urth. Yesod being a watery\nworld of islands would seem to support the idea. This does not negate the oft-discussed consideration \nthat there is a circular component to the human-hiero genesis. Ultimately, we humans (like all life \non earth) are water-spawned beings. Moreover there are many hints (Baldanders, Cilinia/Scylla) that \nthe giant water monsters of Urth might also have a human origin. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<505B183D.3000506@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-20T13:21:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is a useful observation. Recall that Abaia is named after an eel \nthat lives in a lake. Why would a super-massive sea monster be named \nafter an eel that lives in a lake?\n\nIt helps the name to fit if the monster lives \"everywhere.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/20/2012 8:58 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nI think there can be an incorrect assumption that Abaia is a single creature in one deep-ocean\nlocation. I think that is incorrect partly because that isn't a very good vantage point to\ninterfere with human affairs as he does. Also because there are hints that Abaia resides in\nother places, including Lake Diuturna and Gyoll (as revealed in the story of the old boatman\nwho carried clams). Perhaps also beneath the earth under the cave of the man-apes?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-21T18:49:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505B183D.3000506@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: This is a useful observation. Recall that Abaia is named after an eel \nthat lives in a lake. Why would a super-massive sea monster be named after an eel that \nlives in a lake? It helps the name to fit if the monster lives \"everywhere.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed. I guess I'll offer this observation. Severian connects the Naviscaput to Abaia.\nBut the Naviscaput has taken Night as his mate. In Greek mythology, the mate of Night or\nNyx is Erebus. (one of their offspring is Charon, source of some of my suspicions about\nthe Old Boatman who is Dorcas' husband).\n\nSo, which is the Naviscaput, Abaia or Erebus? Could it be both, somehow?\n\nI've mentioned that in the sun series, gender seems to be a mere convention adopted by these \nnon-human god-monster beings for their dealings with humans. Names are perhaps even more of \na human convention (Apheta doesn't seem to need a name until meeting Severian). Maybe \"Erebus\"\nis just the name for the piece of \"Abaia\" who ended up near Antarctica. Likewise for \nall the 13 megatherians?\n\nI find it interesting that in listing the offspring of Greek deities, there is the need \nto distinguish sexually produced offspring from the budded off variety. For the more ancient\ngods like Nyx there seems to be a higher percentage of asexual offspring. But even Zeus and\nHera have a few budded off kids.\n\nSomehow I get the sense that Wolfe (like Frank Herbert in the Dune series) is trying to get \nus to the idea of a universal god who becomes divided and then reforms into new gods (or \nGod?) in whatever way best suits their purpose in the next generation. I'm not a religious\nscholar but perhaps the divided god idea started from Hinduism with Brahma and all his branches\nand all their avatars.\n\nI could almost see this idea as a way for Wolfe to reconcile his ideas about the reality of\nancient gods with the demands of being a modern Christian. Perhaps being Catholic with its\nemphasis on the Trinity is more fertile ground for such thinking than the more straight,\nmonotheistic leanings of Protestantism. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<505CBD83.3070802@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-21T19:18:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/21/2012 2:49 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff: This is a useful observation. Recall that Abaia is named after an eel\nthat lives in a lake. Why would a super-massive sea monster be named after an eel that\nlives in a lake? It helps the name to fit if the monster lives \"everywhere.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Agreed. I guess I'll offer this observation. Severian connects the Naviscaput to Abaia.\nBut the Naviscaput has taken Night as his mate. In Greek mythology, the mate of Night or\nNyx is Erebus. (one of their offspring is Charon, source of some of my suspicions about\nthe Old Boatman who is Dorcas' husband).\n\nSo, which is the Naviscaput, Abaia or Erebus? Could it be both, somehow?\n\nI've mentioned that in the sun series, gender seems to be a mere convention adopted by these\nnon-human god-monster beings for their dealings with humans. Names are perhaps even more of\na human convention (Apheta doesn't seem to need a name until meeting Severian). Maybe \"Erebus\"\nis just the name for the piece of \"Abaia\" who ended up near Antarctica. Likewise for\nall the 13 megatherians?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll say this: the one thing more frightening than a Cthulhu sleeping \nunder the waves is 13 Cthulhus sleeping under the waves." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I find it interesting that in listing the offspring of Greek deities, there is the need\nto distinguish sexually produced offspring from the budded off variety. For the more ancient\ngods like Nyx there seems to be a higher percentage of asexual offspring. But even Zeus and\nHera have a few budded off kids.\n\nSomehow I get the sense that Wolfe (like Frank Herbert in the Dune series) is trying to get\nus to the idea of a universal god who becomes divided and then reforms into new gods (or\nGod?) in whatever way best suits their purpose in the next generation. I'm not a religious\nscholar but perhaps the divided god idea started from Hinduism with Brahma and all his branches\nand all their avatars.\n\nI could almost see this idea as a way for Wolfe to reconcile his ideas about the reality of\nancient gods with the demands of being a modern Christian. Perhaps being Catholic with its\nemphasis on the Trinity is more fertile ground for such thinking than the more straight,\nmonotheistic leanings of Protestantism." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is certainly true that gender is a big problem for anyone trying to \nunderstand the divine with only his/her two hands and 5 senses. If \nhumans are the purpose of the universe, and humans are gendered, then \nthe universe and/or its creator(s) logically must be gendered as well. \nThat's one route many religions (and alchemy) have taken.\n\nChristianity denies sex and gender in several ways and at certain \npoints---controlled male and female sexuality, the virgin birth, asexual \nangels, an unmated God---but definitely sees humans and their natural \nenvironment (Eden) as primarily gendered. (By eliminating Mary (the \nfourth member of the Trinity?), Protestantism ends up quite \nmale---almost as male as that guy in the Old Testyment.) Wolfe obviously \nhas noticed: he sets up the Long Sun as a highly gendered system, with \neven robots getting male and female names. Suggesting, as you do, that \nAbaia is asexual but has a mate is a contradiction---but then so is a \nmale God who has no female mate but isn't remotely interested in sex or \nprocreation (for contrast, see Jupiter, girlfriends).\n\nBut if humans are NOT the big attraction, the main show, then there is \nno reason for the universe or its creator/ruler to be gendered.\n\nIn BOTNS, humans clearly ARE pivotal . . . but if you subtract the fact \nthat we ourselves are humans who know of no others like us, on balance \nBOTNS actually takes that human centrism and makes it look as \nsmall-minded and provincial as it possibly can appear. How many novels \nprovoke serious debates over the number of Christs, human or otherwise, \nallowed in a uni/multiverse in which humans are so insignificant? We're \noutnumbered by insects on our own planet.\n\nIn short, while a line has to be drawn somewhere, I think it's \nappropriate that Severian's indifferent universe is \"represented\" by \nnongendered super-entities, both good and bad." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-23T04:13:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505CBD83.3070802@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just a few loose ends to (perhaps) wrap up this thread. I think a\ngood case has been made to support the idea of Seawrack losing her \narm via Babbie rather than Horn's shot. It isn't a crucial point \nfor me though. More crucial is recognizing the black pirate ship\nand the green island as expressions of the Mother.\n\nWolfe takes the trouble to note that the pirate ship does not come\nfrom any town but from a freshwater inlet. Horn seems to be on a \nrather lonely journey, not one following established shipping lanes.\nWhy would pirates hang out in the middle of nowhere just to prey on\nsuch rare and slim pickings as Horn's boat?\n\nRegarding the crew, Horn muses about them later and how perhaps they\nwere hiding below the deck or something. But when he actually sees\nthe boat he notes a crew of 8-9, \"mostly women\". What kind of pirate\nship is crewed by mostly women? Why would Wolfe present us with this\nodd situation in the beginning of this series then have it disappear\nwith no later significance? Like Chekhov's gun, (Wolfe's own stated\nrule), something/someone from that pirate ship has to appear later in\nthe story.\n\nBy viewing that ship as the Mother, a crew of women actually starts to\nmake sense. It hearkens to Great Scylla and that crop of women growing\non her back. And maybe to Abaia and the undines?\n\nOne thing that might be evidence against the pirate ship as the Mother\nand some Seawracks is that one of the women on board yells at Horn to\n\"Haul down!\". Doesn't sound much like Seawrack talking. But it is sailor\ntalk and the Mother and Seawrack certainly have some experience with \nsailors." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: It is certainly true that gender is a big problem for \nanyone trying to understand the divine with only his/her two hands and 5 \nsenses. If humans are the purpose of the universe, and humans are gendered, \nthen the universe and/or its creator(s) logically must be gendered as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This could be the basis for why the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is indubitably\nmale, though I think cultural factors are a strong component. The people of\nthe Middle East are so vigorously patrifocal in their social structure.\n\nContrast this with Hinduism where I think Brahma, though most often called \"he\",\nis essentially considered genderless. Though modern India is rather patrifocal,\nprobably due to Muslim influence, ancient India was far less so.\n\nI still think incest is a key distinguishing factor. Egyptian deities and the \ncognate gods of surrounding areas were incestuous, probably echoing the \nincestuous pharaonic families. The God of the ancient Hebrews gained\na significant moral superiority by being both One and self-created and thus\nincapable of incest. \n\nI still wonder if the incest which lurks in the shadows of Severian's story\nis meant to reference only Oedipus or is actually addressing the more general\nincest problem of the ancient gods. A shame Gene Wolfe will never tell me. Heh. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<505F12D9.7030307@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-23T13:47:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/23/2012 12:13 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nJust a few loose ends to (perhaps) wrap up this thread. I think a\ngood case has been made to support the idea of Seawrack losing her\narm via Babbie rather than Horn's shot. It isn't a crucial point\nfor me though. More crucial is recognizing the black pirate ship\nand the green island as expressions of the Mother.\n\nWolfe takes the trouble to note that the pirate ship does not come\nfrom any town but from a freshwater inlet. Horn seems to be on a\nrather lonely journey, not one following established shipping lanes.\nWhy would pirates hang out in the middle of nowhere just to prey on\nsuch rare and slim pickings as Horn's boat?\n\nRegarding the crew, Horn muses about them later and how perhaps they\nwere hiding below the deck or something. But when he actually sees\nthe boat he notes a crew of 8-9, \"mostly women\". What kind of pirate\nship is crewed by mostly women? Why would Wolfe present us with this\nodd situation in the beginning of this series then have it disappear\nwith no later significance? Like Chekhov's gun, (Wolfe's own stated\nrule), something/someone from that pirate ship has to appear later in\nthe story.\n\nBy viewing that ship as the Mother, a crew of women actually starts to\nmake sense. It hearkens to Great Scylla and that crop of women growing\non her back. And maybe to Abaia and the undines?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Where does the \"crop of women\" occur?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "One thing that might be evidence against the pirate ship as the Mother\nand some Seawracks is that one of the women on board yells at Horn to\n\"Haul down!\". Doesn't sound much like Seawrack talking. But it is sailor\ntalk and the Mother and Seawrack certainly have some experience with\nsailors." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They've eaten a few, yes. Hmm . . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: It is certainly true that gender is a big problem for\nanyone trying to understand the divine with only his/her two hands and 5\nsenses. If humans are the purpose of the universe, and humans are gendered,\nthen the universe and/or its creator(s) logically must be gendered as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This could be the basis for why the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is indubitably\nmale, though I think cultural factors are a strong component. The people of\nthe Middle East are so vigorously patrifocal in their social structure.\n\nContrast this with Hinduism where I think Brahma, though most often called \"he\",\nis essentially considered genderless. Though modern India is rather patrifocal,\nprobably due to Muslim influence, ancient India was far less so.\n\nI still think incest is a key distinguishing factor. Egyptian deities and the\ncognate gods of surrounding areas were incestuous, probably echoing the\nincestuous pharaonic families. The God of the ancient Hebrews gained\na significant moral superiority by being both One and self-created and thus\nincapable of incest.\n\nI still wonder if the incest which lurks in the shadows of Severian's story\nis meant to reference only Oedipus or is actually addressing the more general\nincest problem of the ancient gods. A shame Gene Wolfe will never tell me. Heh." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I had meant to include a passing comment on that as well. If the \nuniverse is double-sexed (dioecious?) like us, it must be either \nhermaphroditic or dyadic. Either way it must mate with itself to produce \nor create or even to become itself.\n\nIf it is single-sexed (monoecious), then I guess we're just supposed to \nforget about the missing sex. (In the same way, we're not supposed to \nnotice that Eve's offspring either mated with others or mated with one \nanother.) Which does seem like a step toward acknowledging that the \nuniverse is not like us at all, not at all.\n\nAnd I think one of the motives of SF is to deal with this dual reality: \nfirst that we congenitally, helplessly want the world to shape itself to \nus, and second that it never will, and in fact (thanks in part to \nscience) seems if anything increasingly uncaring. (For instance, the \nearth will not forgive us for global warming, nor is it likely to save \nus from it.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348411839.79054.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-23T14:50:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505F12D9.7030307@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Sun, 9/23/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\n\n\n\nYes, I had meant to include a passing comment on that as well. If the universe is double-sexed (dioecious?) like us, it must be either hermaphroditic or dyadic. Either way it must mate with itself to produce or create or even to become itself.\n\nIf it is single-sexed (monoecious), then I guess we're just supposed to forget about the missing sex. (In the same way, we're not supposed to notice that Eve's offspring either mated with others or mated with one another.) Which does seem like a step toward acknowledging that the universe is not like us at all, not at all.\n\nAnd I think one of the motives of SF is to deal with this dual reality: first that we congenitally, helplessly want the world to shape itself to us, and second that it never will, and in fact (thanks in part to science) seems if anything increasingly uncaring. (For instance, the earth will not forgive us for global warming, nor is it likely to save us from it.)\n_______________________________________________\n\n\nI do think the manner of reproduction of life in Wolfe is intrinsically important, from Sev and Apheta's fecund white fountain coupling to the mating rituals of the inhuma, and that asexual means of transferring the self obsess both the cannibalistic analept of the Alzabo and other faucets of both new and short sun, but I do want to make one counterpoint to your final paragraph.\n\nWolfe, the spiritual engineer, is certainly not intrinsically opposed to science, but is rather critical in a psuedo-didactic way, critical of the final goals and motivations of man. the little parable of a man who complained all his life that Pas had messed up the whorl - at the culmination, he faces Pas, and Pas asks, \"so you could have made the Whorl better?\"? \"Yes, I reckon I could.\"? \"That's what I wanted you to do, make it a better place.\" screams that humans and their desires and wants shape the world ... with nobility of purpose, the world actually becomes a better place. To ascribe a cold callous naturalistic reading to Wolfe in the sun sequence has always seemed slightly skewed to me, and is my problem with the majority of Wright's criticism. \n\nWolfe is not a naturalist; if anything he's an eclectic symbolist/spiritualist who embraces paradoxes. Much more ideologically akin to a Hawthorne than a realist like Howe. Thus, the world spiritually shapes itself to us each and every day." } ] }, { "message_id": "<8F94BDDA-74B5-45CB-8D47-1217A66B5F09@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-23T17:22:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505F12D9.7030307@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 23/09/2012, ?s 14:47, David Stockhoff escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/23/2012 12:13 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Just a few loose ends to (perhaps) wrap up this thread. I think a\ngood case has been made to support the idea of Seawrack losing her\narm via Babbie rather than Horn's shot. It isn't a crucial point\nfor me though. More crucial is recognizing the black pirate ship\nand the green island as expressions of the Mother.\n\nWolfe takes the trouble to note that the pirate ship does not come\nfrom any town but from a freshwater inlet. Horn seems to be on a\nrather lonely journey, not one following established shipping lanes.\nWhy would pirates hang out in the middle of nowhere" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is a ponderous observation. (Notice though that Abaia has independent 'agents', so Seawr... Scyll... er... the Mother may have as well. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "just to prey on\nsuch rare and slim pickings as Horn's boat?\n\nRegarding the crew, Horn muses about them later and how perhaps they\nwere hiding below the deck or something. But when he actually sees\nthe boat he notes a crew of 8-9, \"mostly women\". What kind of pirate\nship is crewed by mostly women? Why would Wolfe present us with this\nodd situation in the beginning of this series then have it disappear\nwith no later significance? Like Chekhov's gun, (Wolfe's own stated\nrule), something/someone from that pirate ship has to appear later in\nthe story.\n\nBy viewing that ship as the Mother, a crew of women actually starts to\nmake sense. It hearkens to Great Scylla and that crop of women growing\non her back. And maybe to Abaia and the undines?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Where does the \"crop of women\" occur?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "One thing that might be evidence against the pirate ship as the Mother\nand some Seawracks is that one of the women on board yells at Horn to\n\"Haul down!\". Doesn't sound much like Seawrack talking. But it is sailor\ntalk and the Mother and Seawrack certainly have some experience with\nsailors." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They've eaten a few, yes. Hmm . . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "David Stockhoff: It is certainly true that gender is a big problem for\nanyone trying to understand the divine with only his/her two hands and 5\nsenses. If humans are the purpose of the universe, and humans are gendered,\nthen the universe and/or its creator(s) logically must be gendered as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This could be the basis for why the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is indubitably\nmale, though I think cultural factors are a strong component. The people of\nthe Middle East are so vigorously patrifocal in their social structure.\n\nContrast this with Hinduism where I think Brahma, though most often called \"he\",\nis essentially considered genderless. Though modern India is rather patrifocal,\nprobably due to Muslim influence, ancient India was far less so.\n\nI still think incest is a key distinguishing factor. Egyptian deities and the\ncognate gods of surrounding areas were incestuous, probably echoing the\nincestuous pharaonic families. The God of the ancient Hebrews gained\na significant moral superiority by being both One and self-created and thus\nincapable of incest.\n\nI still wonder if the incest which lurks in the shadows of Severian's story\nis meant to reference only Oedipus or is actually addressing the more general\nincest problem of the ancient gods. A shame Gene Wolfe will never tell me. Heh." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I had meant to include a passing comment on that as well. If the universe is double-sexed (dioecious?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "di + oikos = two dwellings = two kinds of individuals, male and female." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "like us, it must be either hermaphroditic or dyadic. Either way it must mate with itself to produce or create or even to become itself.\n\nIf it is single-sexed (monoecious)," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "one dwelling = only one kind of individual, with the implication that it possesses both sexes (I.e. hermaphrodite; in botany, one usually reserves this latter term to mean that the flowers themselves have both sexes, instated of the individual having male and female flowers). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "then I guess we're just supposed to forget about the missing sex. (In the same way, we're not supposed to notice that Eve's offspring either mated with others or mated with one another.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know that we are; the Good Book doesn't dwell on the issue, but biblical literature has, since forever. There are even names for Cain's sisterwives. Incest, like a lot of other things, only became unlawful at Sinai, and only some of the things that were unlawful at Sinai were mentioned to always having been unlawful. Lot's daughters' aren't condemned at all. \n\nIt turns out that sex is a big part of religious thought. It's hardly surprising that it's prominent in Wolfe's writings. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<505F8ACE.4090700@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-23T22:18:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1348411839.79054.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/23/2012 10:50 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\n--- On *Sun, 9/23/12, David Stockhoff //* wrote:\n\n\n\n Yes, I had meant to include a passing comment on that as well. If\n the universe is double-sexed (dioecious?) like us, it must be\n either hermaphroditic or dyadic. Either way it must mate with\n itself to produce or create or even to become itself.\n\n If it is single-sexed (monoecious), then I guess we're just\n supposed to forget about the missing sex. (In the same way, we're\n not supposed to notice that Eve's offspring either mated with\n others or mated with one another.) Which does seem like a step\n toward acknowledging that the universe is not like us at all, not\n at all.\n\n And I think one of the motives of SF is to deal with this dual\n reality: first that we congenitally, helplessly want the world to\n shape itself to us, and second that it never will, and in fact\n (thanks in part to science) seems if anything increasingly\n uncaring. (For instance, the earth will not forgive us for global\n warming, nor is it likely to save us from it.)\n _______________________________________________\n\nI do think the manner of reproduction of life in Wolfe is \nintrinsically important, from Sev and Apheta's fecund white fountain \ncoupling to the mating rituals of the inhuma, and that asexual means \nof transferring the self obsess both the cannibalistic analept of the \nAlzabo and other faucets of both new and short sun, but I do want to \nmake one counterpoint to your final paragraph.\nWolfe, the spiritual engineer, is certainly not intrinsically opposed \nto science, but is rather critical in a psuedo-didactic \nway, critical of the final goals and motivations of man. the little \nparable of a man who complained all his life that Pas had messed up \nthe whorl - at the culmination, he faces Pas, and Pas asks, \"so you \ncould have made the Whorl better?\" \"Yes, I reckon I could.\" \"That's \nwhat I wanted you to do, make it a better place.\" screams that humans \nand their desires and wants shape the world ... with nobility of \npurpose, the world actually becomes a better place. To ascribe a cold \ncallous naturalistic reading to Wolfe in the sun sequence has always \nseemed slightly skewed to me, and is my problem with the majority of \nWright's criticism.\nWolfe is not a naturalist; if anything he's an eclectic \nsymbolist/spiritualist who embraces paradoxes. Much more \nideologically akin to a Hawthorne than a realist like Howe. Thus, the \nworld spiritually shapes itself to us each and every day." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks Marc. I like that counterpart very much." } ] }, { "message_id": "<505F8AED.3080801@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-23T22:19:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1348411839.79054.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "er, counter/point/, I meant." } ] }, { "message_id": "<505F8CDA.5000105@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-23T22:27:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<8F94BDDA-74B5-45CB-8D47-1217A66B5F09@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/23/2012 1:22 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nYes, I had meant to include a passing comment on that as well. If the universe is double-sexed (dioecious?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "di + oikos = two dwellings = two kinds of individuals, male and female." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "like us, it must be either hermaphroditic or dyadic. Either way it must mate with itself to produce or create or even to become itself.\n\nIf it is single-sexed (monoecious),\none dwelling = only one kind of individual, with the implication that it possesses both sexes (I.e. hermaphrodite; in botany, one usually reserves this latter term to mean that the flowers themselves have both sexes, instated of the individual having male and female flowers)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I did kind of screw that up, didn't I.\n\nIt doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b) \ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or \nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you \ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed \nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "then I guess we're just supposed to forget about the missing sex. (In the same way, we're not supposed to notice that Eve's offspring either mated with others or mated with one another.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know that we are; the Good Book doesn't dwell on the issue, but biblical literature has, since forever. There are even names for Cain's sisterwives. Incest, like a lot of other things, only became unlawful at Sinai, and only some of the things that were unlawful at Sinai were mentioned to always having been unlawful. Lot's daughters' aren't condemned at all.\n\nIt turns out that sex is a big part of religious thought. It's hardly surprising that it's prominent in Wolfe's writings." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Absolutely. It's huge, as the Donald would say." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-24T00:31:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505F8CDA.5000105@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: > It turns out that sex is a big part of religious \nthought. It's hardly surprising that it's prominent in Wolfe's writings." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Absolutely. It's huge, as the Donald would say." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am hoping Antonio is lucky enough to not be familiar with Donald Trump." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Thanks Marc. I like that counterpart very much." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ditto" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Where does the \"crop of women\" occur?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good question. Had to search around to find it among the pages at the end\nof RTTW. That part of the story is so rife with revelations I am still\nstruggling to wrap my mind around all of it. And of course Wolfe jumps around\nand inserts so many asides and observations it is always confusing. I'll use\nsome excerpting to get to the point below. \n\nIn my copy it starts on page 364. They are on a ship on Urth moving from the\nGyoll delta to the open ocean. One of the passengers is called both \"Scylla\" \nand \"the girl\" She is calling/singing to the ocean." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We both wanted to know why Scylla wanted to talk to that other Scylla in the\nRed Sun Whorl and he said, \"She wants to describe her efforts in the Long Sun\nWhorl, and to obtain the Greater Scylla's advice\"....>" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "People started coming out of the water ahead...they were all women. The ones \nclosest to us were smaller, and the ones further away were bigger, so they all\nseemed like they were the same size. Some of the farthest back ones were as tall\nas Father (Silkhorn), Juganu and me put together. A lot had on black robes and\ncowls, but some were naked, especially the big ones further back. The closest \nones talked and sang, and called to us..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The girl kept singing to them, and they got quieter and started to come toward\nus. It was like they were standing on something under the water that moved....\nTwo sort of rose up and talked to the girl and Father then, their robes getting \nlonger and longer as they came up out of the water until they would have dragged\nbehind them clear across the deck if they had been walking on the boat. There was\nsomething under them that the women were standing on, if those women had any feet.\n...one looked at me and smiled, and she had little sharp, pointed teeth like tacks.\nHer eyes were all one color and sort of glowed or gleamed under the cowl... I told\n[Father] about the woman who had looked at me and smiled and said, \"Was that Scylla?\"\nThe girl was mad about it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think Wolfe is going to give it to us more clearly than this. I think having \na collection of smaller singing women and giant, naked women with sharp teeth rising \nup out of the water (almost) clearly ties sirens, the Mother, Scylla, undines and \nAbaia together. And if there were some doubt, Wolfe give us the women wearing black \nrobes and cowls. This garb is called an Abaya or Abaia. Hard to swallow that as \ncoincidence given all the other connections between giant sea monster/gods. And more \nevidence that Wolfe is willing to use english word play as direct reader clues to names \nin the Sun Series. (like Rhea Silvia and perhaps Sirenia, Cilinia and Seawrack) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<505FB07F.7040302@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T00:59:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm just curious. Has anyone noticed that\n\n(1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to Eden, \nincluding gender-based naming systems\n\n(2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as a \nsort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character\n\n(3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially giving \nthem to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word, \"make better\"?)\n\n???" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348452939.9534.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-24T02:15:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<505FB07F.7040302@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Sun, 9/23/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\n\nFrom: David Stockhoff \nSubject: (urth) Gender and creation myth\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 5:59 PM\n\n\nI'm just curious. Has anyone noticed that\n\n(1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to Eden, including gender-based naming systems\n\n(2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as a sort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character\n\n(3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially giving them to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word, \"make better\"?)\n\n???\n\nAlso, note quetzal's tree planted on the Long Sun: man has climbed up the tree, but has not yet climbed down it. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From chapter 1 of Calde of the Long Sun" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"A god called Ah Lah bared Wo-man and her husband from the garden. ... We seem to have lost sight of Ah Lah, by the way. ... No one ever asks why the cobra wanted Wo-man to eat his fruit\" ...\n\"In order that she would climb his tree, Patera. The man likewise. Their story's not over because they haven't climbed down yet.\"\n\nand later, thinking of the tamarind he planted: \"Their parent tree, nourished by his own efforts, was of more than sufficient size now, and a fount of joy to him: a sheltering presence, a memorial of home, the highroad to freedom. ... Even in this downpour the tree was safer, though he could fly\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50604C30.1000403@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T12:04:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<1348452939.9534.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/23/2012 10:15 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\n--- On *Sun, 9/23/12, David Stockhoff //* wrote:\n\n\n From: David Stockhoff \n Subject: (urth) Gender and creation myth\n To: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \n Date: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 5:59 PM\n\n I'm just curious. Has anyone noticed that\n\n (1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to\n Eden, including gender-based naming systems\n\n (2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as\n a sort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character\n\n (3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially\n giving them to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word,\n \"make better\"?)\n\n ???\n\nAlso, note quetzal's tree planted on the Long Sun: man has climbed up \nthe tree, but has not yet climbed down it.\nFrom chapter 1 of Calde of the Long Sun\n\"A god called Ah Lah bared Wo-man and her husband from the garden. ... \nWe seem to have lost sight of Ah Lah, by the way. ... No one ever asks \nwhy the cobra wanted Wo-man to eat his fruit\" ...\n\"In order that she would climb his tree, Patera. The man likewise. \nTheir story's not over because they haven't climbed down yet.\"\nand later, thinking of the tamarind he planted: \"Their parent tree, \nnourished by his own efforts, was of more than sufficient size now, \nand a fount of joy to him: a sheltering presence, a memorial of home, \nthe highroad to freedom. ... Even in this downpour the tree was safer, \nthough he could fly\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Passages which of course raise more questions . . . The \"not yet climbed \ndown\" suggests that the wisdom sought by humans is attainable but is not \nyet attained or put to use. That's clear enough for the scene but not \nterribly enlightening.\n\nI always thought of the woman/man in the tree metaphor as a sort of joke \ntold in terms of human evolution, i.e., arboreal apes coming down from \ntrees to walk on two feet. (Otherwise why twist Genesis to have BOTH go \nup the tree?)\n\nBut is Quetzal thinking of inhumu evolution and applying it to Genesis? \nDoes this tell us more about how the inhumi evolved than about humans? \n(Marc, I know you're the guy to ask!)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348488998.45741.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-24T12:16:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<50604C30.1000403@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Mon, 9/24/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nPassages which of course raise more questions . . . The \"not yet climbed down\" suggests that the wisdom sought by humans is attainable but is not yet attained or put to use. That's clear enough for the scene but not terribly enlightening.\n\nI always thought of the woman/man in the tree metaphor as a sort of joke told in terms of human evolution, i.e., arboreal apes coming down from trees to walk on two feet. (Otherwise why twist Genesis to have BOTH go up the tree?)\n\nBut is Quetzal thinking of inhumu evolution and applying it to Genesis? Does this tell us more about how the inhumi evolved than about humans? (Marc, I know you're the guy to ask!)\n\n\nYes, it is a syncretism of Genesis and inhumi evolotion, but you are no doubt aware of my rather controversial opinion:\n\nmen have evolutionarily \"climbed up\" the trees of green and become the vanished people over time?... the liana vines in clinging to those mystical vanished gods (gods who are the giant trees of green, which weep and perform other anthropomorphic tasks, such as eating in cannibalistic fashion) have become the degenerate lesser sentient being, the inhumi, whose parasitic gifts make them able to grab what they consume and incorporate it into their future offspring - thus, inhumi are manlike when they feed off men, and reptilian and even simply lianas (like Silk's staff in In Green's Jungles) in the absence of that parent? animal genetic material.\n\nOf course, like everythiing in Wolfe this has a literal interpretation too - men have climbed up into the whorl and have not yet climbed down yet to repopulate, following the plan of Pas.\n\nSo I see a scheme in which man literarily climbed back up an evolutionary tree and vanished, more or less, a hybrid of plant and animal. Inhumi are simply a byproduct of the vines parasitizing that magical recombinatory power of the trees on a slightly more debased level." } ] }, { "message_id": "<506057C2.2070307@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T12:53:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<1348488998.45741.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/24/2012 8:16 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nYes, it is a syncretism of Genesis and inhumi evolotion, but you are \nno doubt aware of my rather controversial opinion:\nmen have evolutionarily \"climbed up\" the trees of green and become the \nvanished people over time ... the liana vines in clinging to those \nmystical vanished gods (gods who are the giant trees of green, which \nweep and perform other anthropomorphic tasks, such as eating in \ncannibalistic fashion) have become the degenerate lesser sentient \nbeing, the inhumi, whose parasitic gifts make them able to grab what \nthey consume and incorporate it into their future offspring - thus, \ninhumi are manlike when they feed off men, and reptilian and even \nsimply lianas (like Silk's staff in In Green's Jungles) in the absence \nof that parent animal genetic material.\nOf course, like everythiing in Wolfe this has a literal interpretation \ntoo - men have climbed up into the whorl and have not yet climbed down \nyet to repopulate, following the plan of Pas.\nSo I see a scheme in which man literarily climbed back up an \nevolutionary tree and vanished, more or less, a hybrid of plant and \nanimal. Inhumi are simply a byproduct of the vines parasitizing that \nmagical recombinatory power of the trees on a slightly more debased level." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. thanks for restating it. My gut reaction is that, except for the \nmiddle paragraph, which is perfect, there is something way too \ncomplicated about this interpretation. Not least the question of time, \nif Green is Urth, assuming that is your assumption. So far everything \nhas been simple, then suddenly it becomes complex. Also, I doubt Wolfe \nintends \"evolutionary tree\" to be part of the metaphor. It's too \nrecursive. And I doubt Quetzal would call inhumi \"debased.\"\n\nI think you're on the right track. I agree that Quetzal's story tells us \nsomething about men and trees and vines and neighbors---but it seems to \nme that it should be expressable in fewer words. Something more \nchildish, with a moral of sorts. Like the original." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-24T12:55:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<506057C2.2070307@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: \n(1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to Eden, \nincluding gender-based naming systems\n(2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as a \nsort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I could use some elaboration or explanation for these two.\n\n(3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially giving \nthem to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word, \"make better\"?)\n\nI read this part of the text as social allegory. How does a Christian-\nLibertarian author think we ought to work to make the world a better place?\n\nWhat are the problems facing Blue? We have the expected human social issues\nfound in New Viron, Dorp and Gaon. And we have giant false gods in the ocean\nwho produce temptations. So perhaps some of the improvement Wolfe is expecting\nit that we stop worshipping false gods (money, power, sex?). Perhaps this is \nthe Christian side.\n\nBut surely the worse and more immediate problem is the inhumi." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Also, note quetzal's tree planted on the Long Sun: man has climbed \nup the tree, but has not yet climbed down it.... \"No one ever asks why the cobra \nwanted Wo-man to eat his fruit\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Could this partly be an evolutionary allusion? Is Wolfe asking us to improve by \nfully shrugging off our animalistic, primate heritage?\n\nAnyway, that tree was planted by an inhumu named Quetzal. A quetzal is a bird\nbut could Wolfe be hinting at Quetzalcoaltl, the feathered serpent god of the\nAzteks?\n\nThe Inhumi are deceptive parasites by nature. They can't do anything through\ntheir own efforts except deceive people and leech off them. They are presented\nas the ultimate evil. Could this be Wolfe's Libertarian, anti-socialism side\nshowing?\n\n(Sorry, to restart a previous debate but when I say the inhumi can't do anything\nthrough their own efforts, that includes flying through space. I still assert\nthey cannot do this impossible thing but perpetuate the lie because it masks\ntheir greatest weakness/secret. They can only achieve interplanetary travel as \nstowaways, unwanted hitchhikers or even (in the case of the lander) hijacking. \nI bring it up because I recently started to wonder about Patera Remora. His \nname indicates a creature which is, by essential nature, an unwanted hitchhiker.\nIs there any evidence that Remora is or is not inhumi?) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<506058BC.5010106@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T12:57:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/23/2012 8:31 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nWe both wanted to know why Scylla wanted to talk to that other Scylla in the\nRed Sun Whorl and he said, \"She wants to describe her efforts in the Long Sun\nWhorl, and to obtain the Greater Scylla's advice\"....>\nPeople started coming out of the water ahead...they were all women. The ones\nclosest to us were smaller, and the ones further away were bigger, so they all\nseemed like they were the same size. Some of the farthest back ones were as tall\nas Father (Silkhorn), Juganu and me put together. A lot had on black robes and\ncowls, but some were naked, especially the big ones further back. The closest\nones talked and sang, and called to us..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "The girl kept singing to them, and they got quieter and started to come toward\nus. It was like they were standing on something under the water that moved....\nTwo sort of rose up and talked to the girl and Father then, their robes getting\nlonger and longer as they came up out of the water until they would have dragged\nbehind them clear across the deck if they had been walking on the boat. There was\nsomething under them that the women were standing on, if those women had any feet.\n...one looked at me and smiled, and she had little sharp, pointed teeth like tacks.\nHer eyes were all one color and sort of glowed or gleamed under the cowl... I told\n[Father] about the woman who had looked at me and smiled and said, \"Was that Scylla?\"\nThe girl was mad about it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think Wolfe is going to give it to us more clearly than this. I think having\na collection of smaller singing women and giant, naked women with sharp teeth rising\nup out of the water (almost) clearly ties sirens, the Mother, Scylla, undines and\nAbaia together. And if there were some doubt, Wolfe give us the women wearing black\nrobes and cowls. This garb is called an Abaya or Abaia. Hard to swallow that as\ncoincidence given all the other connections between giant sea monster/gods. And more\nevidence that Wolfe is willing to use english word play as direct reader clues to names\nin the Sun Series. (like Rhea Silvia and perhaps Sirenia, Cilinia and Seawrack)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't argue with that, although there is no \"ship\" or island in that \nscene, so the particulars are still up for debate. Those women do appear \nto be flesh puppets, not possessed corpses, though the difference may be \nslight after all.\n\nI have not read Short Sun twice, so I need to finish the second read and \nget back to RTTW. I agree, the book is so full of revelations it's \ndifficult to absorb them all." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348492807.99798.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-09-24T13:20:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<506057C2.2070307@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Mon, 9/24/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\n\nNot least the question of time, if Green is Urth, assuming that is your assumption. So far everything has been simple, then suddenly it becomes complex. Also, I doubt Wolfe intends \"evolutionary tree\" to be part of the metaphor. It's too recursive. And I doubt Quetzal would call inhumi \"debased.\"\n\nI think you're on the right track. I agree that Quetzal's story tells us something about men and trees and vines and neighbors---but it seems to me that it should be expressable in fewer words. Something more childish, with a moral of sorts. Like the original.\n\n\nAll well and good, but ...\nI'm not sure Short Sun/ what is going on can be expressed in a few pithy words. \"Paradoxes explain everything ...?they can't be explained\". \n\nThere are several time disjunctions, however, such as different passage of time between one visit to Urth and another when talking to Severian at the end of RTTW, and the odd presence of a Rajan figure in the ancient stories told at the beginning of In green's jungles, Oreb and all. The power to \"enter\" people's stories seems game breaking. Comments about how there is a similar feeling between Nessus and the city of the inhumi, and the inhumi's claim that \"we are everywhere!\" after visiting urth. Of course they are.\n\nAnd, of course, the green man has access to the corridors of time. It's not like Sevs story is a universe in which time travel is categorically impossible.\n\nComplexity is par for the course in short sun. I honestly think Wolfe wanted to obscure who, what, why, how, when, and where in the novel. Even the black/white shrinking/growing ring: first he says it is the same ring, then a different one - indeterminacy is the name of the game in Short Sun, though I think there is a bottom rung of meaning, of which the narrators are blissfully ignorant, because they cannot recognize where they are or themselves." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348499178.42162.YahooMailNeo@web84518.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T15:06:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Monday, September 24, 2012 8:55 AM\nSubject: (urth) Gender and creation myth" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: \n(1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to Eden, \nincluding gender-based naming systems\n(2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as a \nsort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I could use some elaboration or explanation for these two.\n\n---It's mostly a fairly loose collection of big, obvious things; nor do they strictly follow the old myth but rather mix it up with later myths. The Whorl has winged monitor beings. The Whorl seems to be heating up to drive out the colonists, though later it seems to cool itself. The Long Sun draws attention to itself as a feat of human engineering, resembling the imaginary though iconic \"first fire\" kindled by evolved humans. (Which was after all itself an act of imitation.) \n\nThere is a lot of uncertainty regarding the genesis of the colonists: Quetzal's tale of the tree, the origin/creation of chems and their pairing/mating, the scrubbing of religion from the colonists' minds. Even the ancient telepathic society when all humans \"spoke\" the same language seems to echo the post-Eden that exists as a potential within the Whorl, as do all the towns and cities reflecting languages from all over Urth/Earth, derived from the previous Eden. \n\nAs I have noted before, the Whorl resembles the Tower of Babel in its hubris but also resembles a man-created Eden in its human-bearing function as well as its furtherance of God's \"plan\" for Man. (Man behaving as God could be either the ultimate evil or the ultimate good, or---paradox!---both at once.) In the Whorl universe, Eden is not one-way but cyclical---you CAN return or ascend or strive higher, and Silkhorn does.\n\n---I think it's the consensus that the Neighbors put Quetzal and others on the Whorl. I don't recall the location of the text supporting this and the motive for it, but it is stated. They wanted to see what would happen, perhaps to see if humans fared better than they did.\n\n(3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially giving \nthem to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word, \"make better\"?)\n\nI read this part of the text as social allegory. How does a Christian-\nLibertarian author think we ought to work to make the world a better place?\n\nWhat are the problems facing Blue? We have the expected human social issues\nfound in New Viron, Dorp and Gaon. And we have giant false gods in the ocean\nwho produce temptations. So perhaps some of the improvement Wolfe is expecting\nit that we stop worshipping false gods (money, power, sex?). Perhaps this is \nthe Christian side.\n\nBut surely the worse and more immediate problem is the inhumi.\n\n---I can only direct you to Marc's summary and quote. Social/political allegory does not seem to me to be a fruitful path for interpretation when we have something better. Besides, Wolfe is not a \"Christian-libertarian\"---there is no such thing, not with a hyphen---but a ~1960s Catholic liberal. The distinction is perhaps slight in terms of how two such people might respond to the same political survey, but it is critical. Justice (but not fairness) is a central goal.\n\nThose problems are merely emblems of the problems that will always face us as long as we are human. There is no solving them. Ever. There is only always recognizing and confronting them. \"Making better\" does not need to mean \"constructing a permanent utopian society.\" Those attempts are insane anyway; far better to work for incremental improvement within one's own sphere." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc Aramini: Also, note quetzal's tree planted on the Long Sun: man has climbed \nup the tree, but has not yet climbed down it.... \"No one ever asks why the cobra \nwanted Wo-man to eat his fruit\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Could this partly be an evolutionary allusion? Is Wolfe asking us to improve by \nfully shrugging off our animalistic, primate heritage?\n\n---I don't think so. Plainly that is a start, but it's not enough and it's not spiritual enough or concrete enough.\n\nAnyway, that tree was planted by an inhumu named Quetzal. A quetzal is a bird\nbut could Wolfe be hinting at Quetzalcoaltl, the feathered serpent god of the\nAzteks?\n\n---Yes, the key words being \"serpent\" and \"god.\" Remember that Satan works for God by goading us forward. Classic carrot and stick!\n\nThe Inhumi are deceptive parasites by nature. They can't do anything through\ntheir own efforts except deceive people and leech off them. They are presented\nas the ultimate evil. Could this be Wolfe's Libertarian, anti-socialism side\nshowing?\n\n---No reason to go political. Remember that fairy folk often are shown as unable to do the simplest things, when they are not shown forging magical blades, cutting marvelous stones, and hammering invulnerable armor. Of course, that just brings us back to their function as a projection screen for humans. So maybe, but so what? No one likes freeloaders. I suppose Wolfe might say that at least pirates fight and die for their looted treasure. But anyone could observe that, and anyway the inhumi are not very different from pirates in that regard.\n\n(Sorry, to restart a previous debate but when I say the inhumi can't do anything\nthrough their own efforts, that includes flying through space. I still assert\nthey cannot do this impossible thing but perpetuate the lie because it masks\ntheir greatest weakness/secret. They can only achieve interplanetary travel as \nstowaways, unwanted hitchhikers or even (in the case of the lander) hijacking. \nI bring it up because I recently started to wonder about Patera Remora. His \nname indicates a creature which is, by essential nature, an unwanted hitchhiker.\nIs there any evidence that Remora is or is not inhumi?)? ? ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n\n---The name is indeed troublingly out of place, and remoras are certainly hitchhikers, although they perform a service in exchange---don't forget symbiosis as an instructive moral lesson provided by our universe. They are also sometimes (ice) dragons. Are there any other characters named for fish?\n\nHowever, Remora doesn't act like he recognizes Quetzal for what he is, which you'd think he would if he were an inhumu. Maybe not." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1348499389.68713.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-24T15:09:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gender and creation myth", "in_reply_to": "<1348492807.99798.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Monday, September 24, 2012 9:20 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Gender and creation myth\n\n\n\n\n--- On Mon, 9/24/12, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\nNot least the question of time, if Green is Urth, assuming that is your assumption. So far everything has been simple, then suddenly it becomes complex. Also, I doubt Wolfe intends \"evolutionary tree\" to be part of the metaphor. It's too recursive. And I doubt Quetzal would call inhumi \"debased.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think you're on the right track. I agree that Quetzal's story tells us something about men and trees and vines and neighbors---but it seems to me that it should be expressable in fewer words. Something more childish, with a moral of sorts. Like the original." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All well and good, but ...\nI'm not sure Short Sun/ what is going on can be expressed in a few pithy words. \"Paradoxes explain everything ...?they can't be explained\". \n\nThere are several time disjunctions, however, such as different passage of time between one visit to Urth and another when talking to Severian at the end of RTTW, and the odd presence of a Rajan figure in the ancient stories told at the beginning of In green's jungles, Oreb and all. The power to \"enter\" people's stories seems game breaking. Comments about how there is a similar feeling between Nessus and the city of the inhumi, and the inhumi's claim that \"we are everywhere!\" after visiting urth. Of course they are.\n\nAnd, of course, the green man has access to the corridors of time. It's not like Sevs story is a universe in which time travel is categorically impossible.\n\nComplexity is par for the course in short sun. I honestly think Wolfe wanted to obscure who, what, why, how, when, and where in the novel. Even the black/white shrinking/growing ring: first he says it is the same ring, then a different one - indeterminacy is the name of the game in Short Sun, though I think there is a bottom rung of meaning, of which the narrators are blissfully ignorant, because they cannot recognize where they are or themselves.\n\nFair enough, and well put. But though the SS certainly is quite complex, I think Quetzal's tale itself is simple. It is of course difficult to \"see\" his perspective." } ] }, { "message_id": "<50680264.3080303@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-09-30T08:27:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<505F8CDA.5000105@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nIt doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the other \nsex." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50687D73.90009@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-09-30T17:12:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50680264.3080303@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the \nother sex." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds \ndeliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "entonio at gmail.com", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-09-30T19:23:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50687D73.90009@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's the whole the Church being the bride of Christ thing..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<50691528.6090105@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T03:59:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/30/2012 2:23 PM, entonio at gmail.com wrote:\nThere's the whole the Church being the bride of Christ thing..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!\n\nCreation, not reproduction." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T12:18:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50691528.6090105@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Parent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds \ndeliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In nature, the more common scheme is for a parthenogenetic mother to produce male and female\noffspring (usually in times of environmental disturbance) and it is the siblings which mate.\nI think that is a function of lifespan though. If the mother remained alive long enough I'm\nsure there wouldn't be any moral barriers to mother-son incest.\n\nAnyway there is Abaia and his undine \"daughter-brides\" to consider in this discussion. Makes \nme wonder what the relationship is between Apheta and Tzadkiel. She claims to be \"larva\" which\nsuggests an insect nature, while Tzadkiel very specifically compares him/herself to sponges.\nPerhaps a general invertebrate kinship is being suggested. Certainly giant beings like Abaia\nand Tzadkiel (and Zeus?) who are said to be as large as mountains and islands, don't have an \ninternal skeleton in their natural state.\n\nPerhaps it is we humans (and our fellow vertebrates) who are perverse in the greater scheme\nof things, with our extreme separation and distinction of genders. Perhaps Wolfe is recognizing\nthis. I've had lifelong interest in both zoology and mythology but I'm not sure I'd ever have \nrecognized the parallel between the sexual/asexual reproduction of invertebrates and the ancient \ngods without reading Wolfe. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349102006.34064.YahooMailNeo@web84510.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-01T14:33:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Monday, October 1, 2012 8:18 AM\nSubject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: Parent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds \ndeliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In nature, the more common scheme is for a parthenogenetic mother to produce male and female\noffspring (usually in times of environmental disturbance) and it is the siblings which mate.\nI think that is a function of lifespan though. If the mother remained alive long enough I'm\nsure there wouldn't be any moral barriers to mother-son incest.\n\n\n---True. I'm skeptical that this was observed much before the modern era (I think the original discussion revolved around \"religious\" views of the universe) but it's certainly real and fits the bill in our current context.\n\n\nAnyway there is Abaia and his undine \"daughter-brides\" to consider in this discussion. Makes \nme wonder what the relationship is between Apheta and Tzadkiel. She claims to be \"larva\" which\nsuggests an insect nature, while Tzadkiel very specifically compares him/herself to sponges.\nPerhaps a general invertebrate kinship is being suggested. Certainly giant beings like Abaia\nand Tzadkiel (and Zeus?) who are said to be as large as mountains and islands, don't have an \ninternal skeleton in their natural state.\n\nPerhaps it is we humans (and our fellow vertebrates) who are perverse in the greater scheme\nof things, with our extreme separation and distinction of genders. Perhaps Wolfe is recognizing\nthis. I've had lifelong interest in both zoology and mythology but I'm not sure I'd ever have \nrecognized the parallel between the sexual/asexual reproduction of invertebrates and the ancient \ngods without reading Wolfe. ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n\n\n---Interesting take. I think that the various adjectives should be taken as suggestive rather than as real clues to a hard xenobiology. (Lots of invertebrate families have larvae.) Also, if Tzadkiel compares himself to a sponge, then he can't BE a sponge. But something is clearly going on there. \n\nI like the idea of the human approach to sex as \"special.\" Certainly sex allows faster evolution by increasing the rate of combinations, which is directly relevant to the theme of incrementally evolving moral progress. It also is related to \"mortality,\" from which humans famously suffer but gods and others do not (including those ever-present fairies who always need humans to serve them as kings etc.).\n\nInternal skeletons might indeed be useless in a very large sea creature. But then, sponges don't get that big either. The best way to be big while minimizing the effects of both gravity and pressure might be simply to float. Back to you, Naviscaput!" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5069BD0A.4090108@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T15:55:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1349102006.34064.YahooMailNeo@web84510.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I should point out that there's nothing specifically insectoid or even \ninvertebrate about larvae. Individuals are said to be a 'larva' if they are \nsignificantly different from their adult stage, other than being simply a \nminiature. It's the default condition; only a few groups have evolved to \nhave their newborn be miniatures of the adults (and yes, among those groups \nis the one comprising reptiles/birds/mammals).\n\nIt may be relevant that latin _larva_ means something like \nwraith/shade/(scary mask)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5069C1F6.70308@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T16:16:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50687D73.90009@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/30/2012 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\nOn 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the\nother sex." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds\ndeliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T16:25:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5069C1F6.70308@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nAre Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, because Pygmalion did not give life to Galatea." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349113086.19908.YahooMailNeo@web84515.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-01T17:38:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<5069C1F6.70308@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Jeff Wilson \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Monday, October 1, 2012 12:16 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\nOn 9/30/2012 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the\nother sex." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds\ndeliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?\n\n\nThat's a very interesting question. As I recall, Galatea \"created\" a stone woman, but he did not love a stone woman. Nor did he give birth to her or even pull her out of his forehead. Rather, he was granted a wish. Venus created her as a woman, and it was this unrelated being that Galatea loved.\n\nSo I don't see how that could be said, though Galatea's neighbors might well have wondered. But men and women already exist in the universe and these two people fit neatly into those categories.\n\nStill, the idea of making something sentient and then, er, \"loving\" it does sound creepy. A better example might be a wizard or a guy with a cloning kit. In which case, incest would be a somewhat abstract but applicable concept, if the creature is able to mate with humans in any real way---if it is human." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349113215.93283.YahooMailNeo@web84514.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-01T17:40:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l, I see I not only got the names backward, but you were way ahead of me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Monday, October 1, 2012 12:25 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\nJeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, because Pygmalion did not give life to Galatea.\n\n-- \nDan'l Danehy-Oakes\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T18:34:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1349113215.93283.YahooMailNeo@web84514.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: I'm skeptical that this was observed much before the modern era." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know. But I'll play Wolfe's advocate for a minute, as he is known in interviews\nto praise the intelligence and wisdom of ancient scholars and denounce our assumptions\nof their ignorance.\n\nIf the ancients were all so anthropocentric we'd expect all creation myths to start with\na first man and first woman. But so many religions find the need to add in an impossibly\nlarge, asexual creator being such as Chaos or Brahma or Jehovah in place before the \nfirst couple. Why? Is such a gigantic being so different than modern scientists' \n\"primordial soup\"? Is it possible (says Gene Wolfe?) that the ancients had a better grip \non creation than we give them credit for?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Certainly sex allows faster evolution by increasing the rate of combinations..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed. Even among the most highly evolved (i.e. specialized) invertebrates, like insects,\nassigned gender and sexual reproduction have become locked in." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...which is directly relevant to the theme of incrementally evolving moral progress" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll argue that evolution of morality in a species is a product of intelligence (choice-\nmaking ability) and social living more than sex, per se." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It also is related to \"mortality,\" from which humans famously suffer but gods and others do not" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One of Tolkein's more brilliant conclusions I think, vis-a-vis the lives of elves vs. Men." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Internal skeletons might indeed be useless in a very large sea creature. But then, sponges \ndon't get that big either." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is an engineering aspect to zoology which I find interesting (though I am not much of\nan engineer myself). For example, internal skeletons allow for greater body size than exoskeletons.\nAnd there are physical limits to that. But elephants can grow bigger than beetles.\n\nThe real issue regarding body size is surface area/volume ratio. It not only affects gravitational\nsupport but circulation. A creature the size of a mountain or island, even supported by water, could \nnot efficiently absorb and distribute oxygen and nutrients to all parts of its body, not to mention \neliminate the waste products generated by such a great mass of flesh.\n\nWhen I was a kid, the largest organisms on earth were said to be the blue whale and the sequoia tree.\nNow, they say the largest is a monoclonal fungal mass in Oregon which occupies 4 square miles \n(10 sq. km) of land. Some distort the definition of \"organism\" so far as to say the largest one is the \nGreat Barrier Reef. Either way I think it illustrates that extremely large size requires being stretched\nand spread out and convoluted enough to allow for proper circulation.\n\nI don't know if Wolfe was thinking of it in the 70's but I think we can scientifically rule out Abaia \n(and the Mother) being giant ocean floor to surface lumps of protoplasm. A huge flat being, flowing or \nfloating, as David notes, through the water would be more biologically feasible.\n\nI am thinking of the story of Semele, Dionysus' mother, who demanded to see the full person of Zeus in\nall his \"glory\". She was destroyed by it. I wonder if that \"glory\" was actually disgust in finding out\nshe had mated with a gigantic fungal mass or a miles-long flatworm.\n\nThere is also the fantastical incident where Severian sees Tzadkiel in his full glory in the Autarch's\nmirror book. Winged, human-shaped, big as an island and floating in outer space. Not very realistic.\nPerhaps Severian's mind (or Tzadkiel) edited the real image for our consumption. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349117667.26713.YahooMailNeo@web84511.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-01T18:54:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Monday, October 1, 2012 2:34 PM\nSubject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Certainly sex allows faster evolution by increasing the rate of combinations..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Agreed. Even among the most highly evolved (i.e. specialized) invertebrates, like insects,\nassigned gender and sexual reproduction have become locked in." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "...which is directly relevant to the theme of incrementally evolving moral progress" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'll argue that evolution of morality in a species is a product of intelligence (choice-\nmaking ability) and social living more than sex, per se.\n\n\n\n---What I meant by this: Wolfe clearly describes a system in which universes \"flower\" and die and slowly get morally better and better. This is the very picture of evolution applied to our moral nature. Before sexual reproduction, evolution was very slow because there was no mechanical recombination, only mutation through damage. Flowers are a sexual apparatus. Sex made intelligence and the human hive mind possible by speeding up evolution and enlarging the possibilities. So in a sense a \"sexy\" universe of two halves that can mix and separate, like oil and water or good and evil, is more evolved, and more conducive to evolution, than one that is unitary and, in comparison, changeless and flat. Literally, it brings us closer to God on this vast thematic scale.\n\nThis is entirely on a symbolic level. As for actual human sexuality itself---well, let's say it's been the topic of much discussion over 2,000 years." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-01T18:59:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1349117667.26713.YahooMailNeo@web84511.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: only a few groups have evolved to \nhave their newborn be miniatures of the adults (and yes, among those groups \nis the one comprising reptiles/birds/mammals).\nIt may be relevant that latin _larva_ means something like wraith/shade/(scary mask)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you. Yes, I think all that is relevant. I do think Wolfe uses many of the intelligent\ncreatures in his stories to point out not only our anthropocentric view of the universe but\nour mammalian- and vertebrate-centric views also.\n\nThe Latin definition of larva you give reminds me very much of the Arabic translation of \"khaibit\",\nbeing a ghostly shadow or shade. Given the title of the first Sun Series book I find this to be\nsignificant evidence that Severian was, indeed, always intended to be some sort of clone." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes- No, because Pygmalion did not give life to Galatea" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Heh, though I think Adam and Eve are incestuous. Given that she was cloned from cells of Adam's\nrib, they are identical (almost) twins. I have a half-baked theological theory that Original Sin\ninvolved the sin of incestuous lust, hence the fig leaves being the first response to \"knowledge\".\n\nThus you have the judeo-christian reversal on the surrounding religions, in which the gods were \nincestuous but the people were not. I think religion is a better motivator if sin and the blame for \nit goes to the people, rather than the gods. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349119205.81968.YahooMailNeo@web84514.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-01T19:20:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Monday, October 1, 2012 2:59 PM\nSubject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\n\n\nHeh, though I think Adam and Eve are incestuous. Given that she was cloned from cells of Adam's\nrib, they are identical (almost) twins. I have a half-baked theological theory that Original Sin\ninvolved the sin of incestuous lust, hence the fig leaves being the first response to \"knowledge\".\n\nThus you have the judeo-christian reversal on the surrounding religions, in which the gods were \nincestuous but the people were not. I think religion is a better motivator if sin and the blame for \nit goes to the people, rather than the gods. ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n_______________________________________________\n\n\nYes, exactly. Adam did not create Eve, but his material was used in her creation, Galatea-like. So you have the usual questions: why create a man without a woman at all? what kind of man could he have been? were his genitalia retrofitted? And so on. \n\nWe could theorize that Adam was in fact a kind of vertebrate sponge capable of reproducing asexually but who did so only once before his design was reconsidered. Except that we'd have to explain how asexual reproduction could produce a female in the first place. Again, look to the (parthenogenetic) fish and lizards, right, Lee? ;)\n\nAs for your second point---that would surely represent a small step in moral evolution." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2012-10-02T00:07:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 1 Oct 2012, Lee Berman wrote:\nPerhaps it is we humans (and our fellow vertebrates) who are perverse in the greater scheme\nof things, with our extreme separation and distinction of genders." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "John Clute's _Appleseed_ is a meditation on that, kinda...\n\nCheers, David Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-02T00:42:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 02/10/2012, ?s 01:07, David Duffy escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 1 Oct 2012, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Perhaps it is we humans (and our fellow vertebrates) who are perverse in the greater scheme\nof things, with our extreme separation and distinction of genders." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "John Clute's _Appleseed_ is a meditation on that, kinda..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But if anything, vertebrates (and higher ones at that) exhibit _less_ sexual dimorphism than other critters. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2012-10-02T00:50:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 2 Oct 2012, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nBut if anything, vertebrates (and higher ones at that) exhibit _less_ \nsexual dimorphism than other critters." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but they don't _talk_ about it as much..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<9d1065ca8e6e94aab7a93fe013d10979.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-10-02T01:09:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, October 1, 2012 11:25, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nJeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, because Pygmalion did not give life to Galatea." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hm. How do the different creating duties break down among the Trinity again?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "entonio at gmail.com", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-02T09:34:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<9d1065ca8e6e94aab7a93fe013d10979.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 02/10/2012, ?s 02:09, \"Jeff Wilson\" escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, October 1, 2012 11:25, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Are Galatea and Pygmalion incestuous?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No, because Pygmalion did not give life to Galatea." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hm. How do the different creating duties break down among the Trinity again?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "People have fought wars over the way one should say that we don't understand it. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Craig Brewer", "address": "cnbrewer at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-10-02T14:45:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<50687D73.90009@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Speaking of Milton, in the creation story of PL, chaos/matter/nature are always feminine. God implants order into the \"womb of nature\" as he says. It's a matter more of imagery rather than direct characterization, but still interesting.\n\nDon't know how/if that applies to Wolfe. I've always seen interesting analogies between Milton and Wolfe (levels of spirituality/sacredness, matter/spirit monism) but the theologies shouldn't map onto each other in the end for a variety of reasons." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sep 30, 2012, at 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n\nOn 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the other sex." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds deliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349201822.91790.YahooMailNeo@web84514.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-02T18:17:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Spirit (mind) is usually said to animate or organize matter (body). This makes spirit active (light) and matter passive (dark), which usually translates to male and female principles, for obvious reasons involving agriculture as well as animal husbandry, never mind the convenience of having both a sun and a moon to illustrate them. So the two sexes are very useful as concepts for ordering the universe. (You have to wonder how a sentient species without sexes would view the universe. Again, I can only think of the Elder Ones . . . ugh.)\n\n\nWolfe has a lot of beings inhabiting other bodies. But he resists the archaic, sexist implications, in that his \"vessels\" are always full and complete characters, though he does tend to make the genders of rider and mount match---not always.\n\nI can't think of any other particular examples of \"above\" organizing \"below,\" except perhaps in Wizard/Knight." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Craig Brewer \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 10:45 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\nSpeaking of Milton, in the creation story of PL, chaos/matter/nature are always feminine. God implants order into the \"womb of nature\" as he says. It's a matter more of imagery rather than direct characterization, but still interesting.\n\nDon't know how/if that applies to Wolfe. I've always seen interesting analogies between Milton and Wolfe (levels of spirituality/sacredness, matter/spirit monism) but the theologies shouldn't map onto each other in the end for a variety of reasons.\n\nOn Sep 30, 2012, at 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the other sex." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds deliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1349323722.26855.YahooMailNeo@web162805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Craig Brewer", "address": "cnbrewer at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-10-04T04:08:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1349201822.91790.YahooMailNeo@web84514.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, it's a common trope, but it helps me grind my Milton/Wolfe axe...at least in my head.\n\nAs for the higher/lower, Wizard Knight is the main idea. But Briah/Yesod fit something along those lines. Honestly, it's Milton's monism that makes me find the most compelling connection to Wolfe. I've always wondered if there's a \"theory\" of fantasy/magic/supernatural/spiritual in Wolfe that is something like the monism Milton outlines in _Christian Doctrine_. The way Milton describes it, the moral character of a material body affects its spiritual capacity, which is an interesting way to explain the odd supernaturalism of Severian, say, or the Claw, which are \"magical\" but only in ambiguous ways.\n\nThat's the kernel, at least. I haven't actually thought it through.\n\n\n\n \n\nSpirit (mind) is usually said to animate or organize matter (body). This makes spirit active (light) and matter passive (dark), which usually translates to male and female principles, for obvious reasons involving agriculture as well as animal husbandry, never mind the convenience of having both a sun and a moon to illustrate them. So the two sexes are very useful as concepts for ordering the universe. (You have to wonder how a sentient species without sexes would view the universe. Again, I can only think of the Elder Ones . . . ugh.)\n\n\nWolfe has a lot of beings inhabiting other bodies. But he resists the archaic, sexist implications, in that his \"vessels\" are always full and complete characters, though he does tend to make the genders of rider and mount match---not always.\n\nI can't think of any other particular examples of \"above\" organizing \"below,\" except perhaps in Wizard/Knight." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Craig Brewer \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 10:45 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\nSpeaking of Milton, in the creation story of PL, chaos/matter/nature are always feminine. God implants order into the \"womb of nature\" as he says. It's a matter more of imagery rather than direct characterization, but still interesting.\n\nDon't know how/if that applies to Wolfe. I've always seen interesting analogies between Milton and Wolfe (levels of spirituality/sacredness, matter/spirit monism) but the\n theologies shouldn't map onto each other in the end for a variety of reasons.\n\nOn Sep 30, 2012, at 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\ncombined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single male or\nfemale seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That is, you\ncan't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\nhermaphroditism, from this perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is the other sex." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "How would that work, exactly?\n\n---If a female\n creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation?\n\n---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n\nParent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but sounds deliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or Milton's Satan.\n_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth.net\nSubscription/information: http://www.urth.net/\n_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth.net\nSubscription/information: http://www.urth.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<506D8B2D.2080702@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-04T13:12:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Seawrack and the Mother", "in_reply_to": "<1349323722.26855.YahooMailNeo@web162805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's very interesting. I've read very little Milton outside PL, so I \ncan't follow you too far. But you almost seem to be saying that \nSeverian's \"magic\" is a /moral /or spiritual magic, not a physical or \nsimply supernatural one---however one might characterize magic as we \nusually see it portrayed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 10/4/2012 12:08 AM, Craig Brewer wrote:\nYeah, it's a common trope, but it helps me grind my Milton/Wolfe \naxe...at least in my head.\n\nAs for the higher/lower, Wizard Knight is the main idea. But \nBriah/Yesod fit something along those lines. Honestly, it's Milton's \nmonism that makes me find the most compelling connection to Wolfe. \nI've always wondered if there's a \"theory\" of \nfantasy/magic/supernatural/spiritual in Wolfe that is something like \nthe monism Milton outlines in _Christian Doctrine_. The way Milton \ndescribes it, the moral character of a material body affects its \nspiritual capacity, which is an interesting way to explain the odd \nsupernaturalism of Severian, say, or the Claw, which are \"magical\" but \nonly in ambiguous ways.\n\nThat's the kernel, at least. I haven't actually thought it through.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n*From:* DAVID STOCKHOFF \n*To:* The Urth Mailing List \n*Sent:* Tuesday, October 2, 2012 1:17 PM\n*Subject:* Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\nSpirit (mind) is usually said to animate or organize matter (body). \nThis makes spirit active (light) and matter passive (dark), which \nusually translates to male and female principles, for obvious reasons \ninvolving agriculture as well as animal husbandry, never mind the \nconvenience of having both a sun and a moon to illustrate them. So the \ntwo sexes are very useful as concepts for ordering the universe. (You \nhave to wonder how a sentient species without sexes would view the \nuniverse. Again, I can only think of the Elder Ones . . . ugh.)\n\nWolfe has a lot of beings inhabiting other bodies. But he resists the \narchaic, sexist implications, in that his \"vessels\" are always full \nand complete characters, though he does tend to make the genders of \nrider and mount match---not always.\n\nI can't think of any other particular examples of \"above\" organizing \n\"below,\" except perhaps in Wizard/Knight.\n\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n *From:* Craig Brewer \n *To:* The Urth Mailing List \n *Sent:* Tuesday, October 2, 2012 10:45 AM\n *Subject:* Re: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother\n\n Speaking of Milton, in the creation story of PL,\n chaos/matter/nature are always feminine. God implants order into\n the \"womb of nature\" as he says. It's a matter more of imagery\n rather than direct characterization, but still interesting.\n\n Don't know how/if that applies to Wolfe. I've always seen\n interesting analogies between Milton and Wolfe (levels of\n spirituality/sacredness, matter/spirit monism) but the theologies\n shouldn't map onto each other in the end for a variety of reasons.\n\n On Sep 30, 2012, at 12:12 PM, David Stockhoff\n > wrote:\n\n >\n > On 9/30/2012 4:27 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\n >> On 9/23/2012 5:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n >>\n >>> It doesn't quite fit. I meant (1) two sexes (a) separate or (b)\n >>> combined, or (2) no sexes, but also pointing out that a single\n male or\n >>> female seeder/birther/creator isn't really any of those. That\n is, you\n >>> can't have only one sex. Incest is a bit like two-housed\n >>> hermaphroditism, from this perspective.\n >>\n >>\n >> I think you can have a single sexed creator if the created is\n the other sex.\n >>\n > How would that work, exactly?\n >\n > ---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male\n creation?\n >\n > ---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell?\n >\n > Parent-offspring incest would then follow. It's conceivable, but\n sounds deliberately perverse, like something Lovecraftian or\n Milton's Satan.\n > _______________________________________________" } ] } ] }