{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6638", "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": 6638, "subject": "Short Story 101: A Solar Labyrinth", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2014-08-22T14:32:24+00:00", "last": "2014-08-22T14:45:07+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T14:32:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 101: A Solar Labyrinth", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A Solar Labyrinth\n\n“A Solar Labyrinth” first appeared in *The Magazine of Fantasy and Science\nFiction* in 1983 and is reprinted in *Storeys from the Old Hotel.*\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nMr. Smith builds a shifting labyrinth comprised of shadows, supposedly in\nthe Adirondacks. Children and adults attempt to navigate the ever shifting\nmaze, and eventually Mr. Smith and a single solitary child remain.\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nThe first sentence starts out with a rather bold statement: “Mazes may be\nmore ancient than mankind.” Certainly natural mazes and obstacles existed\nfor primitive creatures, but given the love of myth, spirituality, and the\nmystical, we should note that a maze, at least in this story, seems to\nimply an artificial construct. The representational metaphor of creation,\ninherent in the name “Smith”, a craftsman’s name for one who works in metal\nas well as one who strikes or smites, ties in with this idea. Creation as\nhumanity understands it certainly predates mankind, expressed as the\nlabyrinth of the natural world. Wolfe perhaps hints at the existence of\nother ancient things before humanity but still real, perhaps now considered\nas mythical.\n\nWithout slipping into a Gnostic paradigm for the created world, where\nperception is an illusion and possibly a labyrinthine trap, there are still\nseveral patterns in the details Wolfe chooses. Of course immediate mention\nof Theseus is made, who follows a “clew” and becomes “the first in what\nthreatens to be an infinite series of fictional detectives.” The purpose\nof the Cretan labyrinth was to contain a curse from the gods in the form of\nthe Minotaur, the child of Minos' queen and the white bull he failed to\nsacrifice to Poseidon, but there are other symbolic associations that fit\nvery well with the idea of the labyrinth as something solar in nature. The\nname of the minotaur, Asterion, means “star”, and some modern mythologists\nregard the Minotaur as a solar personification (he was the grandson of\nHelios through his mother), his death becoming synonymous with the slaying\nof the bull of the sun in ceremonial worship of Mithras. The concept of\nTheseus as detective ties in with the idea of the labyrinth as something\nthat obscures meaning — that there is indeed a center that can be reached\nand an objective solution.\n\nThe other opening reference, to the story of Fayre Rosamund and her ball of\nthread, in addition to featuring an anachronism (Hampton Court Maze was\nconstructed at the start of the 18th century, Rosamund Clifford, mistress\nof King Henry II, died in the 12th century), highlights a story of\ninfidelity and murder — the purpose of solving Rosamund’s Bower was to\nsatiate the jealous ire of Queen Eleanor. Theseus? mission also involved\ndeath — slaying a monster which King Minos was using to exact his own\nrevenge on Athens for the death of his son Androgeus.\n\nMr. Smith’s maze here is quite different than the traditional labyrinth, as\nit is highly abstract in nature. He has created a shifting maze of shadows\nwith no walls, and though some stay within its imaginary confines, others\nchoose to leave when they grow bored of it. Its barriers are illusory, but\nthey are cast by real objects.\n\nThe story states that recent mazes have been walled, cheap, and\nunimaginative — furthermore, aerial views allow “armchair adventurers” to\nsolve them with a pencil. The text bemoans the loss of “monsters, maidens,\nand amazement”. Mr. Smith has developed “a new kind of maze, perhaps the\nfirst since the end of the age of Myth.” His maze is composed of fairly\nsimple objects, but the starting point Mr. Smith selects for those who seek\nto navigate the maze becomes the center. He walks with them for a time, but\nthe groups of children who come are treated differently. He warns them\nthat a minotaur lurks in the shadows, and gives them the same instructions\nand encouragement. “Some reject his maze out of hand, wandering off to\nexamine the tilted crucifex or the blue-dyed water in the tower Torricelli\nbarometer, or to try (always without success) to draw Arthur’s sword from\nits stone.” Here we have children choosing religion, science, or\nattempting valor and physical feats rather than intellectually engaging in\nMr. Smith’s maze.\n\nOf course, Wolfe’s statement in the introduction to *Storeys from the Old\nHotel* is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy :\n\n“Labyrinths seem to fascinate just about everybody, and for a while I was\nalmost equally interested in what used to be called dialing. I tried to\nkeep the sinister element well in the background, and it seems I kept it so\nfar back that few readers notice it at all; but I like it that way.”\n\nSomething of a self-fulfilling prophecy — now we all seek the\nsinister. However,\nin light of the purpose of the labyrinth, there are only a few\npossibilities: murder, sacrifice, or becoming lost. Given Mr. Smith’s\nproclivity for showing off photos of his latest Ariadne (nine years old -\nas at least one story notes that every nine years the tribute from Athens\nmust be sacrificed to the Minotaur), the possibility of kidnapping and an\nobsession with children rears its head. It might be of some note that he\ndoes show the children what “haunts the shadows” — the frowning figure of\nthe Minotaur, found on a section of the wall that “appears” ancient. Perhaps\nthe Minotaur’s threat is not as ancient as it appears. The bellowing of\nthe bull might or might not proceed from stereos. We should note that\nAriadne was actually in charge of the labyrinth (she is also the\ngranddaughter of Helios).\n\nThe labyrinth is insoluble at noon, and “always, as the shadow of the great\ngnomon creeps toward the sandstone XII set in the law, the too-old,\ntoo-young, insufficiently serious, and too-serious drift away, leaving only\nMr. Smith and one solitary child still playing in the sunshine.”\n\nWhile they are at play, is the child the sacrifice demanded of the\nlabyrinth or merely the special child that Mr. Smith has sought? Wolfe\nwill touch on the threat of pedophilia in “And When They Appear”, but given\nthat the dominant purpose of the labyrinth has always been violent or\nsacrificial, it is difficult to believe, save for the picture of the nine\nyear old “Ariadne”, that Mr. Smith’s intentions are predatory in a sexual\nfashion.\n\n(Dialing is unequivocally the math and engineering behind creating the\nshadows on sun dials, taking into account the movement of the sun, which\nMr. Smith has mastered to create his labyrinth. Don’t believe anyone who\ntells you differently.)\n\nOTHER MYTHOLOGICAL ALLUSIONS\n\nThere are several solar deities mentioned in the text, including\nTezcatlipoca and his equally solar nemesis Quetzalcoatl, who is said to\nlurk in the shadows that create the labyrinth. The temple of the war god\nTezcatlipoca was positioned and constructed with the movement of the sun.\nBecause there are few representations of Tezcatlipoca, some resources refer\nto him as the “invisible god”, which might be ironic in light of the\nnarrative claim that the representation of him is directly from the ruins\nof Teotihuacan. He was also depicted with alternating bands of black and\nyellow and was sometimes depicted as a jaguar.\n\nQuetzlcoatl and Tezcatlipoca were enemies who destroyed each other’s solar\ncreations (the suns of the earth, water, and wind). This progressive cycle\nof competing suns is fascinating, with a new sun being born out of the\ndestruction of the old one, under the province of a different solar deity,\nand might very well interest Wolfe in light of the direction he took in *Urth\nof the New Sun*.\n\nThe mention of Teotihuacan, the city of the Toltec, is interesting as well.\nThe name of Teotihuacan means? the place where gods were born?, and the\nword Toltec implies “a craftsman of the highest level”.\n\nWhen Mr. Smith shows a picture of his latest Ariadne, we should keep in\nmind that Ariadne was in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were made.\nEven though she fell in love with Theseus, the labyrinth existed so that\nKing Minos could exact his revenge on the Athenians for the death of his\nson.\n\nThe monster in the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, is actually King Minos? wife’s\nson, and in some ways he came to be associated with the bull of the sun. The\nbull is one of the animals associated with the late Hellenistic and Roman\nsyncretic worship of Mithras. In this tradition, the killing of the astral\nbull holds a central important place in their worship.\n\nLITERARY ALLUSIONS:\n\nBesides the historical and mythological allusions explored above, I can't\nquite shake the feeling that the labyrinthine themes Borges enjoyed\nexploring in his short work are at play — he even gave the Minotaur a\nrather innocuous and human voice in “The House of Asterion” as he waited\nfor his redeemer to come. Some claim that the title itself refers to\nexplication of Wolfe’s own *Book of the New Sun*.\n\nREPRESENTATION:\nOf course the entire story works as a metaphor for representation — the\nshadows are called “the faded blank ink of God.” Words and ink of represent\nthings, and Wolfe is a sophisticated enough symbolist to know that\nsignifiers and signs often work in a way that is vague, approximate,\nsubjective, or symbolic. These are the shadows on a page. Navigating the\nmaze of shadows is the act of interpretation, with the smith sometimes\nclosely following along the same paths, while other times passing clouds\nand misprision or simply walking away allow the reader to escape thorny or\ndifficult patches. Eventually artifice is stripped away, and as the sun\nreaches its zenith and sits directly overhead, the objects that the shadows\nrepresent are all that is left. We are left with the things themselves, and\nthe labyrinth of shadowy ink has effectively ceased to exist\n\nWhat other monstrous things are left behind when the subterfuge of the\nslippery words and shadows are stripped away?\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nSince the Minotaur lurks in the shadows, and the shadows disappear at noon,\ndoes this leave the solitary child in danger when the maze and its shadows\ndisappear?\n\nIf the dominant metaphor navigating the shadows is of interpreting a text,\nwhat danger does this represent to the child who is perfect for Mr. Smith’s\nintentions? At noon only the objects as they really are exist, and the\n“ink” distorting those objects and creating illusory boundaries fades away.\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\nWhile the story is completely coherent and “real”, the backdrop metaphor\nfor the act of writing (with the shadows the faded ink of God) places this\nwork in the more symbolic short stories, the fables, allegories, and dream\nscenarios that began to populate Wolfe's work in the mid-seventies with\n“Melting” and “To the Dark Tower Came” and continued throughout his career.\n\nNeil Gaiman read the story during the presentation of the Fuller Award to\nWolfe in March of 2012, and commented that he still wasn’t sure if he\nshould be terrified or not. His own contribution to *Shadows of the New\nSun*, “A Lunar Labyrinth”, clearly stems from this one. In Gaiman’s story,\nthe sinister rears its head quite overtly before the conclusion.\n\nA tourist comes to a small town in search of local monuments, and an older\nman takes him up to a mazelike labyrinth on the night of a full moon, its\nedges ringed by rosemary. Our narrator, who claims he “was not a real\ntorturer”, has the Wolfean leg injury, from falling on the ice on his left\nknee the previous year, and his elderly guide walks with a cane. He begins\nby asking, “So how did it end??, to which his guide responds, ?It never\nends,” though he admits the people tried to burn the labyrinth, believing\nit to be too costly.\n\nThe motifs that Gaiman develops throughout the story are those of the moon\nlooking down at the hedges in its various phases (only children walk it\nduring the dark moon, and some believe they see a torturer then), the scent\nof roasted lamb, and the growth of the rosemary around the maze (“Rosemary\nis for remembering”). Most of the month, the maze is an innocuous\nentertainment tied to “canoodling” or making out, but on the night of a\nfull moon, it becomes something more akin to a sacrificial test — if\nsomeone running the maze cannot get to the center and back out without a\nmisstep, “the labyrinth gets to cure you of all that ails you.”\n\nThe cycle of the moon affects the emotions involved — as it grows fuller\nthe people who come to walk it interact with desire or lust (though that is\nthe time when the sick and infirm can walk the labyrinth), but after the\nsacrifice of the full moon, as the moon wanes, it is with love. According\nto the guide, after the dark of the moon, young children (whom he calls\nRomulus and Remus, children famously suckled by a wolf) and parents arrive\nto navigate it, and as it waxes, couples of all ages come. He dismisses\nthe labyrinth of Crete as nothing in comparison, “just some tunnels with a\nhorn headed fellow wandering lonely and scared and hungry.”\n\nWhen the narrator gets to the top, “the sky [is] the color of wine, and the\nclouds in the west glowed with the light of the setting sun.” He notes\nthat his guide “was an old man who walked with a stick and talked to\nstrangers — Nobody would ever miss him.” The guide assumes a lycanthropic\nguise at the top, and our narrator is forced to run the labyrinth,\nbelieving that the moon, who had always accepted his gifts before, will not\nbetray him. He runs “like a lamb to his laughter.”\n\nGaiman’s story does not seem to pivot on the metaphor of the labyrinth as a\nfiction, though the appearance of a torturer, a werewolf who walks with a\ncane, and rosemary certainly serve as links to Wolfe’s life and work. The\nnarrator is a killer who sacrifices to the moon, but here he faces an older\nmythic lunar power, that affects humanity with an increasingly bestial and\natavistic fervor before the sacrifice is made, at which point the cycle of\nthe moon allows genuine emotion to transpire between the couples that come\nto navigate the labyrinth. Only in the dark of the moon does the labyrinth\nseem innately tied to fiction — perhaps pre-rational myth is a more\nappropriate context for the lunar labyrinth. The murderer appears to be on\ntrack to become the next slaughtered lamb. Clearly the majority of\nGaiman’s references are designed to pay tribute to Wolfe (though, unlike\nWolfe, the older guide with the cane has a sister who gives birth to\nsomething monstrous after walking the labyrinth). “A Solar Labyrinth”\nprobably dealt with the process of reading and representation as a whole,\nwith the sacrificial aspect almost removed from its dominant metaphor; “A\nLunar Labyrinth” seems more concerned with mythic cycles affecting behavior\nin addition to pulling symbols and motifs from Wolfe’s own life." } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F755F0.7000109@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T14:38:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 101: A Solar Labyrinth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 22/08/2014 15:32, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nA Solar Labyrinth\n\n\"A Solar Labyrinth\" first appeared in /The Magazine of Fantasy and \nScience Fiction/ in 1983 and is reprinted in /Storeys from the Old Hotel./\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nMr. Smith builds a shifting labyrinth comprised of shadows, supposedly \nin the Adirondacks.Children and adults attempt to navigate the ever \nshifting maze, and eventually Mr. Smith and a single solitary child \nremain." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read it, but it sounds like a dry run for Father Inire and his \nmagic mirrors!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T14:45:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 101: A Solar Labyrinth", "in_reply_to": "<53F755F0.7000109@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 7:38 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOn 22/08/2014 15:32, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nA Solar Labyrinth\n\n“A Solar Labyrinth” first appeared in *The Magazine of Fantasy and\nScience Fiction* in 1983 and is reprinted in *Storeys from the Old Hotel.*\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nMr. Smith builds a shifting labyrinth comprised of shadows, supposedly in\nthe Adirondacks. Children and adults attempt to navigate the ever\nshifting maze, and eventually Mr. Smith and a single solitary child remain.\n\nI haven't read it, but it sounds like a dry run for Father Inire and his\nmagic mirrors!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Given Inire's proclivity for children and taking them to places in his\nmirrors via the reflection and intensification of light, I actually have to\nagree that there are some parallels there, though this labyrinth is a bit\nmore mundane than Inire's mirrors." } ] } ] }