Subject: (urth) Cues

From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 14:56:08 +0000

Quite aside from my own contributions, I enjoyed the discussion of
"Suzanne Delage."  It provided some variety from the discussions of a few
major works, especially BOTNS (not that I don't enjoy those); and it
allowed people to participate who don't have all the details of BOTNS
memorized and don't have time to reread it.

In this spirit, I'd like to see what people think about "Cues."  I
certainly wouldn't rank it with BOTNS, or even "Suzanne Delage"; but it
was selected for Wolfe's first collection (by Wolfe?) and I've always
found it somewhat puzzling.  My current take on it is that the "bowling
balls" are devils, or something of that ilk.  The not-so-young man's deal
is very much like selling his soul.  And the "bowling ball" is evasive
about its origins, lies (about having a sense of humor) and makes a
Freudian slip about "goblins" in the fourth paragraph.  But this doesn't
explain why the "bowling balls" perceive each other as "a fair young
world, mottled by clouds and rich with life."  And is there any
significance to the fact that in the next-to-last paragraph (the same one
in which that description occurs) Wolfe begins to refer to the "bowling
balls" as "he" rather than "it"?

Anyway, that's as far as I've gotten.  Anyone have any ideas?

--Adam

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

---

From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 09:49:03 +0000

At 14:56 1998-05-24 -0500, adam louis stephanides wrote:

>In this spirit, I'd like to see what people think about "Cues." 

I've wondered about "Cues" too: on the face of it, it could be a
straightforward shaggy dog story, existing just to set up the pun;
but there are hints of something more.

The galaxy-goblin spaceship isn't the only slip: right at the end
the ball says "I bed your pardon". Unless it's a typo, of course.
The "Coalstack Nebula" looks like a real joke by the ball, but
I'm not sure why coalstacks (chimneys) would be funnier than
coal sacks!

I wonder whether the balls really do have a sense of humour, or
whether we are seeing them through the n-s-y man's perceptions?
But the ball does seem to know how to answer the cue at the end.
That's two kinds of cue in the story: if the balls were smaller,
we might get a third in somehow.

Peter.

"Doctor, doctor! I keep thinking I'm a billiard ball!"
"I'm sorry, please wait at the end of the ...

---

From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 15:53:00 +0000

> the ball says "I bed your pardon". Unless it's a typo, of course.

I had assumed it's a typo, as it doesn't seem to make any sense as
written.  But I'm not 100% sure.

> whether we are seeing them through the n-s-y man's perceptions?

In addition to the joke at the end, the way the bowling ball's denial is
described strongly implies that it is being evasive.

--Adam

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at coredcs.com>
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 1998 20:42:25 +0000

Time now to consider "Cues," possibly Gene Wolfe's most cryptic short work.
It's also extremely scatological if I read it right--wicked, wicked Gene is
playing a wicked, wicked joke on you, me and anyone else who's attempted
(and usually failed) to decipher his works--so if you're offended by
puerile, bathroom-type humor, perhaps you better steer clear of this one. 

The premise of "Cues," of course, is not that hard to grasp. Given an
infinitude of clues about everything in the universe, it's necessary to
screen out the unimportant data, to winnow the chaff from the grain, if
we're ever to make sense of anything. Otherwise, we'll have a skewed
picture of the universe because our apprehensions are based on the wrong
clues--another word for which, obviously, is miscues.

Miscues abound in "Cues," which is why everything seems so nonsensical.
We're not seeing the "universe" properly because we're concentrating on,
rather than ignoring, the wrong clues. And yet we keep trying to make sense
of what's happening, which thereby augments our confusion.

This concept is perhaps best understood in light of the title and its
myriad variations throughout the story, the various miscues. The story
begins with a "?" This is a misapprehension of "que,"  the Spanish word for
"what."  The "not-so-young" man of our story is a coot. The "children" who
will inherit his "talent" and become "rich and famous" (i.e., successful),
but less so than him, because he is "established" earlier, are cooties. The
bowling ball from Deneb is a cooze (Deneb is Arabic for tail). The girl who
is beginning to think herself sexy is a cutie. The sports equipment idea
the artist gets involves pool cues. 

There's also the misapprehension involved with the "cosmic dust, galaxies,
nebulae, stars" mention--it's the same error that will be made by "artists
who attempt to visualize us as dark sphere's filled with stars." The word
we believe we're hearing/conceptualizing here is "firmament," but this is
just as wrong as is our reading of the "fair blue world, mottled by clouds
and rich with life," i.e., the Earth. GW gives us a better hint of the
latter when the bowling bowl asks the not-so-young man, "What do you call
this place?" and the latter replies "'Earth,'" with Earth being in nested
quote marks. Why is it not simply "Earth"? Because the word we've
misapprehended as firmament is actually "fundament" and the "passed Earth"
is the same as the artist's doodles (i.e., doodoo).

At the risk of total ridicule, let me now confirm the worse for you: Yes,
my friends, "Clues" is about a man going to the bathroom, but as seen by
people who are totally clueless as to the nature of what he's doing.
Naughty, naughty Gene is tweaking our sensibilities big time here--perhaps
even suggesting most of our attempts to intrepret him are full of sh*t. Or
perhaps that our heads are up our fundaments. (Me being a veritable ostrich
of the GI tract, mea maxima culpa.)

As for sf critic John Clute's contention that "Clues" is an example of Gene
Wolfe's antic playfulness, and what he calls "joie d'esprit," I think this
is admirable--especially since the name of "not-so-young man" in the
"bathroom" can almost certainly be worked out to be "John Clute." 

Robert Borski/scolex (who came to these thoughts Martin Luther style)

---

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Jul 1998 01:23:47 +0000

Robert Borski wrote:
>It's also extremely scatological if I read it right...

...

>"what."

You know, I used to think this too, but it's not so. The story opens with

     "Cues?" the young (not really so young any more) man said. "I'm
     afraid I don't understand."

The first word is the same as the title, so Gene Wolfe playfully collapsed
it with the title (even though it is used in quoted speech) resulting in
only one initial occurrence of the word "cues." Please note the occurence
of an open double quote in front the title word with no matching close
quote on the same line and a close quote after the question mark with no
matching open quote (on the same line). I'm really surprised you missed
this, considering your obsession with quotes. (Of course, I am going by
page 294 of the Pocket Books paperback edition of _The Island of Doctor
Death and Other Stories and Other Stories_. Perhaps the copy you read was
"corrected" by some over-zealous copy editor.)

This bit of word play may well be in homage to Lewis Carroll, who did
something very similar in _Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found
There_. The last few words of chapter 3 seem to be missing, but they are
the same as (and collapsed with, portmanteau-style) the title of chapter 4.

I think you may be confused about who is relieving him(it)self here. (I
know I'll be relieved when this particular discussion is over with! 8->)
Although you are not completely clear, I think you are saying that the
not-so-young man is on the can. (By the way, could you please favor us with
all the dirt on how you "almost certainly" work out that "the name of
'not-so-young man' in the 'bathroom' [is] 'John Clute.'"?)

But if that's the case, then why is the bowling ball described as being on
the throne. (If a chair of massy gold isn't a throne, I'd like to know what
is!)

William Ansley

---

From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 21:33:30 +0000

This is Sean Whalen (prion).

William Ansley, I'm glad that you reminded me about the part in cues
where the first bowling ball talks about the universe being infinite
with your question about the universe not being infinitely bright if
it is infinitely large and filled with stars.  The reason that the
universe is not overwhelmed by heat is that it is NOT infinite.  This
is the currently held scientific belief, and I agree with it.  It has
been known for many years.  It is based on many different
observations, but these aren't important.

Another possible, but unlikely, reason would be the fact that even if
the universe were infinite in size, it has only existed for around 15
billion years and the light from all but the closest stars hasn't yet
reached Earth.  Most scientists think this is very unlikely, but I
just thought I'd include it as an alternative explanation if you want
it.

This point also shows that the not-so-young man is not very smart,
along with the ones that you mentioned.  More importantly, it it one
of the examples that show that the bowling balls are not above lying. 
This further undermines its flawed assertation about an infinite
number of cues being available.

prion
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com