{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6721", "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": 6721, "subject": "Short Story 121: Alphabet", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2015-04-21T15:41:41+00:00", "last": "2015-04-21T15:41:41+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-21T15:41:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 121: Alphabet", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " “Alphabet” first appeared in *Fiction International* in 1988 and is\ncollected in *Storeys from the Old Hotel.*\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nThe story begins, “The pet held up a dead snake, then laid it on the stony\nhillside belly down, carefully arranging it in a full sine curve while\nmaking a noise like a leaky valve.” The being to which it offers the snake\npraises the beauty of the reptile and the bravery of the “pet”, though once\nagain, the pet responds by making the “S” sound.\n\nThe point of view character, identified as “he”, once again praises the pet\nfor bringing the snake and a “flap-winged flier” (which no doubt formed a\n“V”, or less likely, a “Y” shape), begging, “Now be still, if you will not\nlearn. I want to write,” though he really doesn’t feel like writing.\n\n“When he closed all his eyes, he saw the flaw that had brought him to this\ninsane world where life ran riot, saw the flaw hanging like a pink haze in\nspace.” When he opens his eyes, the pet is reaching for his “pen”. He\n“thinks” a large, horned beast at the pet, which recoils, “its face losing\nits hairy brownness for the hue of dried mud.” He instructs it to never\ntouch the pen, using it to scrawl “many-colored wingless reptile” on a\nboulder, which makes the stone run in smoking streams.\n\nHe turns away and, “without in the least willing it, sought the cliff of\nthe message,” where he had left the words meant to describe who he is and\nwhat has happened to him in his exile, asking the pet if it even begins to\nunderstand reading. The pet scrawls an “S” on the boulder as it hisses.\n\n“No, that is not a word, that little drawing of yours. That is a picture, a\npicture of a reptile.” He once again sends his thoughts to the pet in the\nform of a herd of the horned beasts below. He realizes he should eat, and\nlooks over the multicolored fruits, the animals the pet had brought, as\nwell as a root “the pet had bitten to show that it was good.”\n\nThe exiled being realizes there is little point in eating now as he\nsuccumbs to despair, thinking that his pet has become better trained, but\nthat it only resulted in “the perfection of the means — the decay of the\nend.” He studies the cliff again, which contains his “name-colony-name” and\ndetails of the “pink flaw” which he equates to the “hand of the god” in his\nmind, which separated him from the communion he shared with his\n“brother-sisters” and their “circular marching of joy”. He reflects that in\nhis language isolated and fool where the same character reversed, and that\nlooking at his message, others would see “fool” to describe his condition.\n“The millions of minds his own mind had once touched, the countless\nintelligences he had nearly though his own, were gone.” He succumbs to\ndespair and writes no more.\n\nThe pet brings a red and a green fruit to the being with daylight, and he\nchoses the red one and takes a bite, at which the pet rejoices. To him, it\nlacks all taste. The pet continues to scratch at his boulder, and the exile\nthinks sarcastically, “You will communicate with me yet. Of course you\nwill,” though of course this is what the pet is actually trying to do. He\nlooks at the “A” figure which the pet has scratched, saying ?Aaaah!?.\n\n“Now what do you think you are doing?” The pet capers and dances, and shows\nthat he is trying to represent the bulls down below. When the exile\nrealizes that the pet is seeking to represent the bulls below, he indicates\nthat it is upside down. The pet turns over to show that he is representing\na dead bull.\n\n“Dead. Yes, I understand now — the horned beasts are dead. Your god will\nnot make them anymore. — You are right, and wiser than I.” The being\nrealizes it has been trying to write in the wrong place: “He had known if\nfor so long, but now it could not be pushed away. He put the point of his\npen to his head and began the first character.”\n\nThe pet does not notice his fall or “the silver rattle of his pen on the\nstones” because “it was drawing the dead bull, and drawing it made the pet\nfeel strong — it imagined itself a great bull, a bull strong enough to push\ndown the whole cliff, the cliff topped with the strange, angular lines that\nhad once been of fire.”\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nOne the surface level Wolfe's story explores the manner in which an\nalphabet might come to exist in the mind of a primitive: inspired to\ncommunicate something, he reaches towards representation of real events,\nusing actual dead animals to represent individual ideas or even sounds. The\ntwo individuals here even have a different idea about what reading and\nwriting entails, and the more sophisticated, possibly many-eyed exile does\nnot apprehend at first what the simpler being, which he believes is a pet,\nis doing — they use different means of communicating. However, it is never\nthat simple in Wolfe and we have to ask ourselves, besides the obvious,\nwhich mythic sources he is using in this tale. In his introduction to *Storeys\nfrom the Old Hotel, *Wolfe indicates that he wrote “Alphabet” when he\nhelped teach a science fiction and fantasy writing course at Portland State\nUniversity in 1982 when students were given the assignment to write an SF\nstory about a blocked writer.\n\nWhile it explores the representational value of language and sometimes its\nfailures to communicate (showing that an “A” represents a dead animal, the\ntrapped being decides to “write” on his own forehead in a fatal form of\nself-expression, quite contrary to the result which the primitive writer\nintended). Even though the “he” of the text is able to project images into\nthe mind of the “pet”, it does not recognize that the pet has internalized\nhis instructions and adapted a representative alphabet and is in turn\ntrying to either illustrate its own system (or that it already understood\nthe concepts of representation the alien writer was trying to convey). The\nstory is not only in the metaphorical exploration of representation through\na linguistic system composed of smaller units (letters evoke images in the\nminds of those who read them, and their own images might not exactly match\nthat of the author) but in the nature of these two beings. It seems to be a\nscience fiction story with the mythic strains of the Genesis tale running\nthrough it. The very first image is of the “pet” presenting a snake to the\nbeing who suffers from writers block in his isolation (in other words, the\n“he” of our story has fallen to a place where further creation no longer\nseems possible, for he has lost communion with his fellows.) Fruits, roots,\nserpents, an attempt to name things, lining up representations with\nconcurrent sound — these artifacts all resonate with the biblical story of\nthe serpent and the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, though in this\ncase it seems that language itself is that fruit, as the ability to\ntransmit thoughts from one individual to another and truly encapsulate\ngood, evil, and all of creation in representation. The letters empower the\n“pet”, and perhaps the gift of the exiled visitor will actually blossom\ninto the achievements of humanity to assert meaning and society on a\nhostile world.\n\nThe alien visitor has taken a bite of the fruit and then died, but its\nattempt to teach the pet will result in something quite miraculous: human\ncivilization and thought as we know it. It seems that the exile lacks the\nRoman alphabet or individual letters/phonemes that the “pet” is trying to\nillustrate, and clearly, the “pet” is using an alphabet very similar to\nours, which employs the sine curve of the snake as an “S”. The symbolist in\nWolfe must adore the idea that letters themselves in certain languages were\nmeant to be representative of an artifact found in reality, though the\nsuicidal master seems incapable of grasping the idea. To some degree this\nis the story of “writing” to influence reality and the power of\nrepresentation to actually affect the world. When the exile from Koneel,\nappositively described as “the circular marching of joy”, decides to\n“write” himself, he dies, but the communion of communication will follow in\nhis wake, enabling the primitive pet and his fellow creatures to experience\nthat joy in a different form, The “pet” has viewed the alien as a God and\ntaken his lessons to a different place than intended.\n\nThe creatures association with an angel fallen from the sky like Lucifer\nhas other biblical similarities: an examination of the Book of Ezekiel\nChapter 1 shows many faced and many eyed creatures who appear like burning\ncoals of fire or torches, surrounded by that fire with lightning flashes.\nThis being also has many eyes, and while there is no description of his\nwings, he seems to be clearly different than the bipedal creature with its\nhairy face he comes to consider a a pet. In Genesis, the Cherub who keeps\nout mankind from Eden is shown with a flaming sword, and the being in\nWolfe's story seems to have the power to scare his pet away from the\nflaming silver pen (using the idea of the stampeding herds of bulls, whose\nmetaphorical strength the pet comes to feel at the end of the story).\n\nWith these symbols in place, we might come to believe that this story is a\nkind of science fictional retelling of the biblical story of Adam (a\nstrange ambiguous being brings knowledge and, perhaps with a fiery pen,\nends the communion with the creature’s “god” and thus the instruction that\nfollows after eating a fruit — a story which we could imagine transforming\ninto one of a serpent, the fruit that brings knowledge and death, and the\nfiery sword of the cherub that keeps man out of paradise — for after the\nbeing eats the offered fruit, it soon dies and deprives the man of\ncommunion with its god — the alphabet of the pet in its very nature seems\nto inherently describe death, as both the “S” and the “A” are images of\ndead animals, and the price of knowledge according to most Judeo-Christian\ntheologians is actually eventual death). While Wolfe's story does not\nresonate on a literal level with Genesis, it does so on a large symbolic\nlevel: serpents, fruit, the coming of death, naming animals with a sound,\nself-knowledge, exile, a fall from grace — these are all included in both\nstories. Clearly our “pet” uses a similar alphabet to ours, and the\nconceivably many-eyed being does not comprehend that alphabet, associating\nthe pet much more with primitive humanity.\n\nWorking against this idea is the absolute lack of any garden imagery and\nthe very secular impression we are left with — the extraterrestrial nature\nof the visitor, who is superior but clearly no longer divine, if he ever\neven approximated divinity, seems more like something out of Moorcock’s *Behold\nthe Man* or, less cynically, Clarke's *2001* than a story which would come\nfrom Wolfe’s pen (though Wolfe is definitely capable of a variety of themes\nand should not be pigeonholed as a fundamental Christian writer). The very\ntheme of the story of Adam and Eve would here be distorted: primitive\nhumanity worships an unworthy god who, in a fit of depression, kills\nhimself after planting the seeds of a flawed civilization and giving the\ncreature the ability to communicate with others of its kind. It also shows\nthe creature how to leave a message for posterity after it is gone, though\nof course the creature believes that it will have left nothing behind after\nits suicidal gesture.\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF S AND A\n\n[image: Inline image 1] Clearly our “pet” is using identifiable cognates of\nthe roman letters “S” and ?A? ? and certainly it could be possible that the\n“A” from he is using is the “aleph of early Phoenician or the alpha of\nCumaean Greek, from which the Roman Alphabet is descended. The earliest\nletters and written ideas were probably in the form of hieroglyphics which\nmarginally represented the objects they sought to represent, and ?aleph,\nwhich eventually became our ?A” actually did begin as a picture of an ox\nhead, which would be consistent with the story. However, the Greek sigma,\nwhich was derived from the Pheonician shin, was probably derived from a bow\nrather than a snake, and was not usually rounded until Roman use, though\nthere are a few Greek style alphabets which presents Sigma as a much closer\nto our modern S (such as that of the perviously mentioned ancient Cumaean,\nthough it does not follow the sine-wave described in the story). However,\nthe letter Nun, which came to represent “fish” and become the letter “N”,\nwas originally used to connote a snake, and its earliest representations\ndefinitely resemble a serpent:\n\nMany of these letters have their origin thousands of years before Christ.\n(If Wolfe knew of the story of the evolution of N from a snake to a fish\nrepresentation, I am sure it is something which would greatly interest him\nas a religious symbolist, though of course the symbolic weight would be\nanachronistic).\n\nPOSSIBLE RELIGIOUS ALLUSIONS:\nTo the hairy faced pet, the banished writer might actually resemble some of\nthe images associated with biblical angels. It closes its eyes in a way\nthat suggests it contains a multitude of them, and its pen appears to be\nsomething like an instrument of might with the power to enflame and\ndestroy, making quite literal the old saying, “the pen is mightier than the\nsword” - though in this case perhaps the pet comes to remember the pen AS a\nflaming sword, the one which cast him out from being able to commune with\nhis god.\n\nMore confusing is the “pink flaw” which separates the exiled being from his\n“brother-sisters”, and his plan to write on the cliff “his love for the\nmyriad others — his thoughts of Koneel, the circular marching of joy.” He\nthinks, “I have been lifted up by the pink flaw — the hand of the god. And\nset down the god knows where. Never, never to see you again, you beautiful\nones.” The name Koneel is mysterious, and given that this being does not\nshare our alphabet, may not be attributed to any meaning on our Earth\nbesides the one the text describes, as a circular march of joy which goes\nnowhere (as the angels are believed perhaps to adore and worship God,\neternally). However, in the Finnish language, it does mean “mechanization”.\n(Whether relevant or not, Finnish myth involves the idea that the world is\nsupported under the North Star by support column around which it turns, and\nthat the movement around this creates a whirl through which souls can\naccess the land of the dead through the northern sky, beyond the normal\nworld).\n\nClearly, while the “pet” regards the exile as a god, the visitor sees\nsomething else as “the god” - whether this be the hand of fate or a\nconscious being is unclear. He speculates that the representation for\n“isolated” and ?fool? in his linguistic system are the same, though\nreversed. (Also, on a possibly unrelated and irrelevant note, while the\nFool tarot card reversed does not seem to directly invoke isolation, the\ncard itself does imply new beginnings — something which would be apt if the\nbasic story Wolfe is mutating is a distortion of the Genesis story, sans\ngarden). The root being bitten by the pet “to show that it was good” also\nmirrors the language of Genesis, where God looked upon his work repeatedly\n“and saw that it was good”. As was already said, however, equating the\nvisitor to both the Cherub, fallen Lucifer, and granting his pen the\neye-opening quality of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil is a\nmassively secular distortion of the original story which almost changes its\ntheme beyond recognition. Yet the echo of Genesis still pervades Wolfe's\ntale, somehow. It could be that Wolfe has decided to “mechanize” the story\nto make it one closer to the evolution of mankind and the inception of\nwriting in general, and that instead of an androgynous, many-eyed, flame\nwielding angel of power, we have an androgynous, many-eyed, flame wielding\nalien of powerlessness.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nIs the serpent meant to represent this many-eyed being from another place\nwhich fails to understand the nature of the creature it view as a pet? Is\nthe story a metaphor for fallen Lucifer in the act of producing in man\nlanguage and knowledge before destroying himself?\n\nOften the idea of the Demiurge is as someone who “writes” creation — should\nwe view this story as a secularization of divine ideas?\n\nIs it SF? Persian or Greek Myth? Judeo-Christian? An allegory for the\nbringing of thought and the promethean fire of creativity and progress to\nprimitive man? Maybe all of these, for it is clear that whatever change has\nbeen engendered in the “pet” who performs the bull dance for its god, it\nhas been empowered and has actually learned how to communicate and\nrepresent the world around it, perhaps to achieve civilization (or true\nhumanity). Its use of our alphabet and the presence of snakes and oxen\ntends to promote the idea that indeed we are looking at something which is\na primitive human on Earth.\n\nShould we assume that the “pink flaw” is a space anomaly rather than some\nmore religious or biological concept? The exile attempts to record “sordid”\ndetails of the flaw on the cliff face.\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\nJust as in “Lukora”, there are simple, easy to explain events going on at\nthe surface level that hint at the mythic and religious, but concretely\npinning down the consequence of the story with absolute certainty is\ndifficult. We are left with the feeling that it resembles myths rather than\nabsolutely knowing that a particular allusion or event is being re-enacted.\nThe attitude of the pet at the conclusion of the tale, that of feeling as\nstrong as a bull, might have some symbolic affinity with bull-like\nfigurehead present in the imagery of “To the Dark Tower Came”. In addition,\nWolfe's treatment of pagan gods and angels in other works such as *Urth of\nthe New Sun *can also show them as remote and distant from God, and there\nis the sense in the Latro books that the pagan gods form a kind of strange\npsuedo-divine conglomeration where identities blur together and lose their\ndistinctness over time, which might resemble the alien telepathic community\nfrom which our exile in this story has been forever isolated." } ] } ] }