{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6541", "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": 6541, "subject": "Short Story 62: Straw", "messages": 2, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-05-01T18:44:33+00:00", "last": "2014-05-01T19:26:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-05-01T18:44:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 62: Straw", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " “Straw” first appeared in *Galaxy* (the table of contents of Storeys from\nthe Old Hotel says in 1974, but other evidence indicates it was the January\n1975 edition of the magazine).\n\n\n SUMMARY:\n\n\n The narrator Jerr, thinks back on when he was 17 years old and killed his\nfirst man — he had joined a group of five air balloon freelancers who ran\ninto lean times and were almost out of straw and food. The day he speaks of\nhe saw a flock of geese fly underneath in the form of a pike head, and this\nproved an omen of approaching battle. He had joined the troupe after\nknocking down one of the members Derek, who insulted his family goose, and\nleft a life behind the plow.\n\nThey ran out of straw after some tension between the strong and large\nfemale Barcata and the man who pilots the balloon, Clow. After a slight\ncrash, they were greeted by the Baron Ascolot and his men, and after\nconfirming that they are “floating swords” for hire, Ascolot's son insulted\nthe narrator, saying “If that boy is high-hearted, or a fierce fighter,\neither, I'll eat his breeks.” Jerr deployed the pincer of his spring loaded\nmace and pulled the man from his horse.\n\nThe captain Miles apologized, but Ascolot said his son must learn humility\nand invited them back to his villa, claiming there was no straw. He\nprovided them a feast at which his daughters distracted Derek and Barcata,\nand in the night Jerr found stables full of straw. When he told his\ncaptain, the captain merely showed him black smoke in the distance and\nsaid, “That's why there's no straw here. Gold but no straw, because a\nsoldier gets straw only where he isn't welcome. They'll reach the river\nthere by sundown, and I'm told it can be forded at this season.” The\ninvaders, the fire-wights who burn straw, come at moonrise.\n\n\n COMMENTARY AND ARTHURIAN REFERENCE:\n\n\n There is a gimmick in the background of the story that most Wolfe stories\ndon't have: what if simple, possible inventions could have happened ages\nbefore their actual conception in the world? How would they be applied? In\nthis case, the value of straw becomes something like the value of petroleum\nbased fuel — a commodity that allows a strong bargaining posture. This\nseems like a realistic SF story situated in a historical setting rather\nthan an alternate history, but it should probably be categorized as such.\n\n\n The name Ascolot is intimately related to the Arthurian myths of Lancelot\nand Gawain. More importantly, it gives us a relative context for the war.\nLancelot stayed at Ascolot and the daughter of the household, the Maid of\nAscolot fell in love with him and later flirted with Gawain. This also\nclues us in to a possible time for the action: a fifth century battle\nbetween the Britons led by King Arthur and the invading Saxons.\n\n\n Wolfe's statements about his motivation specifically mention the date the\nmyth of Arthur is historically ensconced, as well:\n\n\n ?'Straw' is fundamentally a hot-air ballooning story. Every so often I\nlike to think of things that could have been invented a long time before\nthey actually were - or that might easily have been invented but weren't.\nFor example, for hundreds of years, wars among the Greeks (possibly the\nmost brilliantly creative people in history) were fought by heavy\ninfantrymen armed with long spears and circular shields. Most of them were\nwon by the Spartans, the acknowledged masters of hoplite warfare. Then,\naround 379 BC, Thebes produced a general of real genius named\nEpaminonandas. And Epaminondas came up with the simplest *great* military\ninnovation I know of: he cut a notch out of each round shield. That was all\nit was. Instead of looking like a whole cracker, the shield looked like a\ncracker from which a tiny bite had been taken. But that bite permitted the\nsoldier to use his left hand to assist his right in managing his long\nspear, and the Thebans crushed the Spartans at Leuctra.\n\n\"The point is that Epaminondas' notch could have been cut a thousand years\nsooner -- in Homer's day, for example. In the same way, it seems obvious\nthat the hot-air balloon could have been invented well before the end of\nthe ancient world. You need a little rope (it's been around for a long\ntime), a lot of silk (which by then was coming steadily along the spice\nroutes), some straw, and an iron basket to burn it in. There are no moving\nparts, and the design is simplicity itself -- a bag held over a fire. But\nif the hot-air balloon had been invented in 500 AD, what would have been\ndone with it?\n\n\n Given this date and the Arthurian reference, I was looking for one that\nwould explain the name Clow, as a few of the statements around his\ncharacter are cryptic. Unless it was a shortening of Claudin, son of the\nFrankish villain Claudus, and one of the 12 knights who eventually finds\nthe holy grail, I could find none.\n\n\n The wolfe-wiki mentions the meaning of the names for the characters: Miles\nmeans Soldier in Latin, Barcata implies trousered, and Derek Germanic for\nleader. Certainly Barcata is a woman who wears pants.\n\n\n There is also the sign that either the roads or great houses have been\ncompletely destroyed by the fire-wights (firemen): “it was a big house, all\nbuilt of white brick with gardens and outbuildings, and a road that ran up\nto the door. There are none like that now, I suppose.” It is also hinted\nthat riding in a balloon was once common and is now rare, possible because\nthe fire-wights burn all the straw they get their hands on.\n\n\n THE INVENTIONS:\n\n\n Spring loaded pikes with heads that launch which are charged by pounding\nthem against the ground to compress the spring, hot air balloons, a spring\nloaded mace with a pincer/plier grip, and mitts with retractable claws —\nall simple innovations which make the combat sound a bit exotic.\n\n\n WOMEN IN WOLFE\n\n\n As I think back on the female characters we have been exposed to this far\nin Wolfe's writing career, we have seen mysterious elderly secretive types\nwith ambiguous motives (Aunt Jeanine, Mother Cloot, even Aunt Olivia [who\nin my opinion is one of his finest female characters]), maybe one or two\nneedy love interests or pity inducing characters, some of them prostitutes\n(here I am thinking of “It's Very Clean,” “Going to the Beach,” or even\n“Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee”), traitorous ones (“Hour of Trust”)\nbut this is the first time we have a big strong potentially lesbian\ncharacter which will be repeated in General Saba (who is more bovine).\nGunny in Urth of the New Sun perhaps escapes the lesbian connotations but\nproves traitorous in the final analysis. There is definitely an adversarial\nattitude between Clow and Barcata: he snidely comments that “nearly any\nwoman will fight if she can get behind you”.\n\n\n Jerr is then legitimately afraid that she will go for him, and thinks that\nit will take 3 of them together to get her out of the balloon — and that by\nthen they would probably be dead. Barcata is a man hater to some degree,\nand the wolfe-wiki doesn't seem to pick up on this: Jerr is lucky to eat\nanything sitting next to her, and Barcata's interest in the girl at the\nparty, putting her arm around her to warn her of men, is a lesbian advance.\nWithout the distraction of the girls, Derek and Barcata would have left\nnothing for Jerr to eat. So we finally have a girl who would physically be\nable to kill all of the men around her in Wolfe ...\n\n\n While Barcata is a strong woman, she doesn't quite escape that particular\nstereotype of the physically powerful and resentful lesbian.\n\n\n CLOW AND THE NARRATOR:\n\n\n Yet there is also something a bit more subtle at work in the text, and the\nodd juxtaposition of the following: “She was afraid of Clow. I found out\nwhy later — Clow was the only one I was not frightened by, but that is\nanother story, too.” Try as I might, I couldn't find much indication of the\nreason that Barcata would fear Clow and Jerr would fear everyone but Clow,\nunless, this, too, stemmed from sexuality.\n\n\n After his bitter statement about women, Clow pulls out a throwing spike\nand “feigns” cleaning his nails. Later, he pulls out a bit of cherry wood\nand begins carving a woman out of it. There is little indication that Clow\nor Jerr have any interest in the Baron's daughters. There must be a reason\nthat Jerr does not fear Clow and fears all the rest, but it is unclear that\nthere is enough information in the story to make any but the vaguest\nguesses of an intimate relationship between Clow and Jerr that, if\ndiscovered, would make the rest worth being frightened of. (I tend to shun\nBorski's claims that Marsch noticing the state of Trenchard's penis in\nV.R.T. indicates anything of the sort, and there is admittedly almost no\nsexual imagery one way or the other in “Straw”, so it is not necessarily a\ntextually based assertion).\n\n\n If Clow is some kind of historical cognate of Claudin, the cast out son of\na Frankish King who wants nothing to do with his father and instead joins a\nband of roving knights based on principles of purity and goodness, then\nperhaps it is his royal blood that she fears, but that is a tenuous,\nsketchy connection I am not willing to truly invest in, as there is little\nindication of Clow's background.\n\n\n RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER WORK:\n\n\n Taking a historical event, changing it slightly, and re-imagining it are\npresent in Wolfe novels such as *The Devil in a Forest *and the\n*Soldier *series,\nbut this is taking a highly romanticized event such as the myths\nsurrounding the Anglo-Saxon wars near the 5th century AD, turning them\nrealistic, and introducing possible inventions that would have changed the\nworld, in this case, spring loaded and tool based weaponry and the hot air\nballoon. I suppose it may be categorized as alternate history, but it is a\nbit more subtle than the almost clich? “what if Germany had won WWII?”\n\n\n I suppose I might as well talk about how this work is echoed in David\nDrake's homage in *Shadows of the New Sun*, “Bedding” with a brief look at\nthat story. Instead of a coming conflict, it shows a balloon mercenary\ntroupe leaving after a battle in which their crossbowman is injured\nseverely in the arm. There also seems to be five: The captain, the narrator\nChris Bagnell (an Anglo-Saxon surname), the injured Siltsy, a strong but\nslow boy named Diccon, and a female named Birgitta. It also makes use of\nthe statement in “Straw” that straw is plentiful when a balloon soldier is\nno longer welcome.\n\n\n The purse the narrator of \"Straw\" toys with is reflected in the purse\nChris Bagnell uses to provide for and pay off his local girlfriend. The\nBaron who hired them is very nervous about them leaving and has his own\ncrossbows ready in case they don't.\n\n\n Rather than the city of Ascolot, it is set in Gotham, which could be the\ntraditional English setting or refer to the ruins of New York — for unlike\nStraw, this is actually a far future tale. The names of the characters\nwould seem to be primarily European in nature, however. When the girl's ten\nyear old brother tries to stop Chris from leaving, he has a pistol given to\nhim by Chris, whose bullets are long dead, allowing Chris to survive and\ntie up the boy. So while Wolfe's story posits inventions before their time,\nDrake's looks at the return of halberds, horses, and balloons, and baronial\nlife far after their time is gone. It turns out that the Captain and Chris\nwent through exactly the same struggle in the past, with Chris vowing to\ntrack down the Captain (whose gun it was) and ultimately joining him, thus\nthe theme of history repeating itself throughout Drake's story.\n\n\n UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nIs the name Clow short for anything? Are the fire-wights Saxon invaders or\ndoes this story take place a wee bit later? Is the purse Jerr indicates to\nhis listener in the present tense the same purse as the captains,\nindicating that Jerr takes his place? Did the captain die in this struggle?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-05-01T19:26:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 62: Straw", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, very briefly, Gawain stayed at Ascolot - his symbol is the pentagle,\nthe 5 pointed star, according to some myths. (His horse is Gringolet and\nGawain is careful with his horse - Lancelot has no distinct horse and will\nride them to death if necessary.)\n\nThe horse Jerr finds in the stable hiding the straw is \"a big warhorse with\na white star on his forehead.\"\n\n[Gawain's shield is gold on a red background - as the balloon sinks, Jerr\nremarks \"we were sinking towards what looked like a red and gold carpet\"]\nCould be entirely coincidental but I thought I would mention it." } ] } ] }