{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6636",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6636,
    "subject": "a note on allusions in In Looking Glass Castle and Cherry\n\tJubilee",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2014-08-21T15:58:49+00:00",
    "last": "2014-08-21T16:53:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072xXAMY0j2=27PTsd0TP2Laq_559DJ6=9NeqLsbAcOuOGw@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2014-08-21T15:58:49+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) a note on allusions in In Looking Glass Castle and Cherry\n\tJubilee",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Going to finish up a write up on Cherry Jubilee in a few days, and of\ncourse I find that the majority of commentary on the story is by Borski.\nHis technique for finding allusions always raises my blood pressure, but\nafter \"In Looking glass Castle\" I am actually sympathetic with him for\nprobably the first time in years.\n\n\"In Looking Glass Castle\" is the first Wolfe story that I felt was pretty\nunfair with it allusion to Maupassant - the man wrote 300 or so short\nstories.  The chance that Wolfe was actually thinking of The Horla or\nMademoiselle Pearl is astronomically low. Wolfe even avoided mentioning the\nlast name of the author who wrote Cradle of the Sea and misquoted Kipling\non purpose.  Without a search engine or the most erudite reader on the\nplanet, I don't know if those allusions would have been \"gettable\" at the\ntime they were written.  However, Borski's transformation of Edith Berg to\nAlban Berg and bringing in \"The Wozzack\" seems like the step into\nnonsensical forced relationships that is the worst part of his\nscholarship.  He says Edith and Alda both mean rich and then proceeds to\ntransform Alda into Alban.  It's magic.\n\nHe does a similar thing with Cherry Jubilee in this kind of reaching:\n\nThe next paragraph is Borski's.\n\"As for Captain Bogdanoff, I wonder if he's not based on film director Peter\nBogdanovich--another Peter with a Russian name. Bogdanovich, for what it's\nworth, was romantically involved with 1980 Playmate of the Year Dorothy\nStratton (whom Cherry and Merry physically resemble). Stratton was\neventually killed by her estranged husband (which recapitulates the Jubilee\naspect of the story: i.e., the husband is taking back his \"property\").\nCaptain Bogdanoff has been sleeping with Merry in the story, and soon (if\nhe can get the Party to clear him of murder charges) may do so with Cherry,\nsince she's masquerading as Merry. Meanwhile, back here in the real world,\nPeter Bogdanovich soon began dating the late Dorothy Stratton's younger\nsister, who I'm sure bore at least a sororal resemblance (Bogdanovich may\nhave even married her--I'm not sure). So there are extended parallels.\"\nThe above paragraph was Borski's.\n\nFor the love of God, Montressor.\n\nBack in the early days of the internet, information was scarce, but even by\nthe late 90s I had read Red Star by Bogdanov, which I posted on way back in\n2001 on the Urth list, as the ship's name in Wolfe's story was Red Star.\nLuckily that has made its way to the wolfe wiki rather than something like\nthe above, and I ascribe the blame for over-reaching to readers who aren't\nrigorous in their approach to what the text actually implies ...\n\nYet I feel that probably for the first time in \"In Looking Glass Castle\",\nthe allusions were so expansive and vague that we pretty much have to\nemploy Borski tactics or admit that they don't mean anything.  In\npre-internet days I could still have found much of the extra material or\nrelied on my own reading and tried to order supplemental research or find\nit on microfiche - this project would still be possible, but definitely\nless convenient - it would have probably turned a two year project into a\nfour year one.\n\nTo do my due diligence in researching In Looking Glass Castle, I had to\nread Sylvie and Bruno, look up which stories where in The Metamorphosis and\nother stories and re-read or skim them, trust my memory of Maupassant and\nread perhaps a dozen random stories before coming back to the impression\nthat indeed \"The Horla\" was being referenced, (I did not feel I had to read\nCradle of the Sea with a synopsis available, however - the scandal of its\nfabrication seemed the point).\n\nSo often, after contemplating misprision after misprision, I blame the\nreader, but every great once in a while I wonder if some of Borski's\nexcessive over-reaching might not indeed stem from allusions that are just\na bit too expansive and huge."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<53F102840072A5DF@rgout05.bt.lon5.cpcloud.co.uk>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mo Holkar",
        "address": "mo at holkar.net"
      },
      "date": "2014-08-21T16:53:06+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) a note on allusions in In Looking Glass Castle and\n Cherry Jubilee",
      "in_reply_to": "<CAF1072xXAMY0j2=27PTsd0TP2Laq_559DJ6=9NeqLsbAcOuOGw@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 16:58 21/08/2014, Marc wrote:\nTo do my due diligence in researching In Looking \nGlass Castle, I had to read Sylvie and Bruno, \nlook up which stories where in The Metamorphosis \nand other stories and re-read or skim them, \ntrust my memory of Maupassant and read? perhaps \na dozen random stories before coming back to the \nimpression that indeed \"The Horla\" was being referenced,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is a great spot, Marc, thanks! It sheds a lot of light.\n\nIt is perhaps notable that the best translation \nof the invented word 'Horla' is 'Outsider'. \nMaupassant's tale was surely an influence on \nLovecraft's story of that name, which could be \nseen as an inversion of it -- and he cites it \napprovingly in his famous essay on supernatural \nhorror in literature -- but it would be \nsurprising if it didn't also resonate with Wolfe.\n\nbest,\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/  "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}