{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6631", "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": 6631, "subject": "Short Story 99: The Boy Who Hooked the Sun", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2014-08-19T20:50:23+00:00", "last": "2014-10-07T15:58:32+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-19T20:50:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 99: The Boy Who Hooked the Sun", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun\n\n“The Boy Who Hooked the Sun” appeared as a chapbook in 1985 and is\nreprinted in *Starwater Stains.*\n\nSUMMARY: On the eighth day, a boy from Atlantis casts his fishing line into\nthe ocean and catches the long line of the sun as it rises. As the sun\nmoves to escape, it plunges the earth into night, throws up sprays of\nstars, and even hides behind the moon.\n\nThe richest man of the village tells the boy to cut the line, for winter is\nwintering the blossoms in his orchard, and summer drying out the canals\nthat water his fields. The boy pelts him with the stones of Atlantis. The\nstrongest man in the village comes because the rich man hired him, and the\nboy, infused with the power of the sun, tosses him into the sea after also\npelting him with the stones of Atlantis. Then the cleverest man in the\nvillage offers him a kingship in the empire they will form, but he receives\nthe same response. The boy asks, “Oh really” A king. Who is to be emperor?\n\nA magic woman comes, and mentions all manner of supernatural and mythic\nbeings threateningly, and the boy tosses a variety of precious stones at\nher until she, too, leaves. A fool “who sang songs without words to all the\nbrooks and boasted of bedding the white birch on the hill” comes expressing\nhis fears. Instead of pelting him with stones, the boy lets him touch the\nfishing pole until he leaves.\n\nHis mother comes, and claims that she has not yet told him the finest story\nof all, the tale of “The Boy Who Hooked the Sun”:\n\n“Come now to the hose the richest man in the village has given back to us.\nPut on your crown and tell your general to stand guard; take up the magic\nfeather of the bird Tchataka, who opens its mouth to the sky and drinks\nwisdom with the dew. Then we shall dip the feather in the blood of a wild\nox and write that story on white birch bark, you and I.”\n\nHe promises to do as she wants and release the sun for as long as they are\nboth alive, but his thoughts run contrary to his vow: “I love my mother,\nwho is more beautiful than the white birch tree and always kind. But do not\nall the souls wear away at last as they circle on the Wheel” Then the time\nmust come when I live and she does not, and when that time comes, surely I\nwill bait my hook again with the shining stones of Uranus and we shall rule\nthe stars. Or not.\n\nThus, the seasons result — when the sun remembers its sore mouth it seeks\nto get away from the earth, and then when it sees the boy's line stretched\nacross the sky and powdered with hoarfrost, it returns. “Or perhaps it is\nonly — as some say — that it remembers the taste of the bait.”\n\nCOMMENTARY: We have already looked at Wolfe’s take on allegory with “Love,\nAmong the Corridors” (which he insisted was the opposite of allegory — a\nliterary myth). In that story, it is easy to see that love is a woman.\nHere, we have a fable. The distinction between a fable, a literary myth,\nand a parable is perhaps of little use to a fabulist such as Wolfe —\nhowever, the personification of the natural world, with the sun as a kind\nof giant fish, tends to place this clearly in the camp of fables — which\nare nearly ubiquitous across all cultures on earth.\n\nHere, the boy casts his line into the sea at the long reflection of the\nsun. It starts on the eighth day, the day after the creation story is\nconcluded, even though years seem to have passed in the lives of the\ncharacters. We are in the province of man’s dominion over the world exiled\nfrom Eden, and the description of the boy make him both fey and ordinary:\n“He was not such a boy as you or I have ever seen, for there was a touch of\nemerald in his hair and there were flakes of sun-gold in his eyes. His skin\nwas sun-browned, and his fingernails were small and short and a little\ndirty, so he was just such a boy as lives down the street from us both.” He\nis completely ordinary, but still magical.\n\nThe description of the father, who years ago had traded the stones of\nAtlantis for wine and ram skins of the Greeks, shows a turn away from\nuntested value, wonder, and myth to pragmatic and ordinary concerns — the\nworld of logic and bartered goods. Notice that the boy, even though he is\npoor because his father traded away those stones, still seems to have\nunlimited stones of Atlantis to repel the rich man, the strong man, the\nclever man, and the magic woman. The stones of Atlantis represent something\nlike youthful idealism or a belief in something besides riches and trickery\nand mysticism. Perhaps the stones are the power of the fable itself to\nexplain the universe in terms children can understand. At first glance this\nseems to be a belief in magic, that a fishing rod can capture the sun\nitself, but the magic woman who comes by and tempts him undermines that\nreading. At the end, when he considers the stones of Uranus, the stones\nseem to represent the dream of conquering the stars and mastering the\nnatural world completely.\n\nAt the start, the fable attempts to describe why there are stars in the\nnight sky, why sometimes the sun hides behind the moon, and why it grows\nhot and cold as the seasons pass. It shows the coercive power of riches,\nstrength, cleverness, mysticism, and even parental expectations, all things\nwhich can sway children from following their dreams. It shows forbearance\nand patience for foolishness. Much like “At the Point of Capricorn”, the\nmovements of the sun through the heavens is given a kind of human back\nstory, showing why the sun always chooses to return closer to earth and\nallow the cycle of life to continue.\n\nIronically, since the fable attempts to describe poorly understood\nphenomenon in terms that human beings can easily understand, a meaningful\nanalysis is difficult — the story is simply the story, and when the mother\nfinally gets the boy to cut his line, she does so by promising that they\nwill write a wonderful story down — that of “The Boy Who Hooked the Sun”.\nShe calls upon material possessions, worldly might, magic, and the power of\nstory to finally get the boy to release the sun, but one gets the sense\nthat it is only because he loves her that he puts down that youthful dream\nand embraces the values of the world around him (even, ironically,\nspiritual and magical values). However, he vows, when she is dead, to defer\nhis dream no longer and conquer the stars, in the vain hope that there is\nalways a tomorrow. The dreams of progress and mastery over nature — are\nthese the stones of Atlantis?\n\nTHE MAGICAL WOMAN AND HER DEITIES\n\nThe most difficult distinction to make involves the temptation of the\nmagical woman — why are her pleas so ineffective in swaying the boy, who\nseems to hold the stones of Atlantis dear? Let's examine the manner of her\ninvocations.\n\nShe says, “Sabaoth sweats and trembles in his shrine and will no longer\naccept my offerings” - Sabaoth is the Greek form of a word which implies\nthe Lord God of Hosts or armies — Jehovah as a God of battle who will crush\nMoloch, Baal, and other deities. This is a surprising reference to the\nJewish God.\n\nShe then mentions that the feet of Sith, “called by the ignorant Kronos son\nof Uranus”, are broken. Kronos ruled during the golden age of the titans\nbefore he was overthrown by Zeus, and Sith is another name for the Sidhe,\nfairies or elf-like beings who dwell in barrows or in an invisible world\nbeside our own. The conflation of Greek myth with fairy stories or even\ntalk of angels is fairly common in Wolfe by this point.\n\nShe also mentions a bird: “The magic bird Tchataka has flown. The stars\nriot in the heavens, so that at one moment humankind is to rule them all,\nand at the next is to perish.” Tchataka appears in Flaubert's *Temptation\nof St. Anthony*, in which the gymnosophist says :\n\n“I dreamed of the essence of the great Soul whence continually escapes the\nprinciples of life, even as sparks escape from fire. Thus at last I found\nthe supreme Soul in all beings, and all beings in the supreme Soul; and I\nhave been able to make mine own soul all my senses. I receive knowledge\ndirectly from heaven, like the bird Tchataka, who quenches his thirst from\nfalling rain only.” (Flaubert 54-5)\n\nThese magical and mythic references do not sway the boy. It seems that he\naccepts “traditional” magic in due course because of his mother's stories\nand expectations, but in and of themselves they do not serve his youthful\ndream.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nWhat is the hoarfrost covered fishing line which we can see in the sky when\nthe days are shortest?\n\nIs the bait the sun wants to taste the dreams and hopes of youth unfettered\nby reality?\n\nAt first, it seems that the power of Atlantis is in fantasy and even magic,\nbut the mystical woman who comes to try and dissuade the boy makes it clear\nthat it is not magic and spiritualism that the boy holds on to, but perhaps\nsomething else. Why, when he relinquishes the rod, do the stones become the\nstones of Uranus? He is the deity of the sky. Have they ascended beyond his\nreach or have they become the dreams of mastering the universe itself as\nhumanity matures?\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\n\nThe fables and literary myths of Wolfe have a more nebulous and\nhallucinatory feel than his more concrete fiction, and “At the Point of\nCapricorn”, “A Solar Labyrinth”, “The God and His Man”, “The Old Woman\nWhose Rolling Pin is the Sun”, “Empires of Foliage and Flower”, and the\nstories from “Mathoms from the Time Closet” and “Redwood Coast Roamer” as\nwell as “The Arismaspian Legacy” and its follow up, “Slow Children at\nPlay”, all share a kind of impossible symbolist logic that verges on the\ndreamlike but is no doubt inspired by the earliest traditions in\nstory-telling.\n\n\n Flaubert, Gustav. *The Temptation of St. Anthony*. Google ebook." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Pirkola", "address": "rpirkola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-10-07T15:58:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 99: The Boy Who Hooked the Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On August 20, 2014, Charles Gillingham wrote: “This\nstory, I always assumed, is part of the Brown Book from New Sun. I only bring this up, so future stories commented on will\nbe identified as such.\nYour assumption appears to be correct as Wolfe confirmed as much in his \"Introduction\" to *Starwater Strains*:\n\"'The Boy Who Hooked the Sun' was written for the late Jan O'Nale, who used it in a greeting card. It's a brown book story, like those in 'From the Cradle.'\" \nIs there a list of all the brown book stories out there” \t\t \t \t\t " } ] } ] }