{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/929", "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": 929, "subject": "solar labyrinth", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-07-06T22:33:13+00:00", "last": "1998-07-07T11:46:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Damien Broderick", "address": "damien at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au" }, "date": "1998-07-07T11:46:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) solar labyrinth", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Further to the labyrinthine question, John Clute responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " The sentence in question, which was certainly written by me, \nappears in the 1993 text form of the SFE as well. I'm [travelling\nand] a long way from sources, and can't for the life of me \nremember why I said it, beyond its seeming to be true..\n Michael Andre-Driussi [...] may either be able \nto scotch the rumour I started, or confirm my innate and readily apparent \nwisdom. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Clute will be at Readercon any day now, for those of you within striking\ndistance of Boston. *sigh*\n\nDamien Broderick" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1998-07-06T22:33:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) solar labyrinth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Damien Broderick wrote:\nFurther to the labyrinthine question, John Clute responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " The sentence in question, which was certainly written by me,\nappears in the 1993 text form of the SFE as well. I'm [travelling\nand] a long way from sources, and can't for the life of me\nremember why I said it, beyond its seeming to be true..\n Michael Andre-Driussi [...] may either be able\nto scotch the rumour I started, or confirm my innate and readily apparent\nwisdom." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Clute will be at Readercon any day now, for those of you within striking\ndistance of Boston. *sigh*" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Damien,\n\nEven though the result wasn't all that informative, I want to thank you for\ngoing to the trouble of asking John Clute and Peter Nicholls about the\npassage I quoted to try to get an answer to my question about it.\n\nI must also say I am impressed with the circle of your acquaintances in the\nSF world.\n\nAlthough I am not at all surprised, it is also impressive to have one of\nthe editors of _The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_ confirm that our\nmantis is *the* guy when it comes to settling obscure points about Gene\nWolfe.\n\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-07-07T05:05:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) solar labyrinth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, when John Clute calls me to bat, I go.\n\nHowever unready I might be.\n\nMy recollection about things being said (not by John Clute directly,\nmind you) regarding \"A Solar Labyrinth\" (ASL) and the Urth Cycle . . .\n\nASL has been discussed before as a sort of touchstone. (For the\nrecord, fwiw, I have never seen an interpretation like that of Robert\nBorski's.)\n\nGreg Feeley mentioned ASL in his NYRSF (No. 31 and No. 32) piece. The\npoint being that the creator is also the monster: that the roles of\nDaedelus and Minotaur have been collapsed into one. That mazes\nfigure strongly in TBOTNS: the retelling of Theseus; the Autarch's\nmind described as a maze. (Let alone the tunnels under the citadel;\nthe trail to Ultan; the sorcerer's maze; the labyrinth patterns on\nthe magic mirrors; the trail to the Last House; the matachin dance\nitself; the maze of the ship Tzadkiel; etc.)\n\nThe last line of Feeley's essay: \"Let his comment [Wolfe's\nintroduction notes on ASL in STOREYS FROM THE OLD HOTEL, which\neverybody here has been quoting] stand as reminder of the\nhelpfulness and suspect motives of Wolfe's own commentaries, and\nthe story as a short, formal nudge: every maze holds a monster;\nlabyrinths serve the interests of their builder.\"\n\nTo which I would add my favorite Urth labyrinth tidbits: how the\nOld Autarch has the aspect of a bull (or is that \"bull-headed man\"?)\nin the corridors of time (and how this links to the calendar stories\n\"To the Dark Tower Came\" and \"At the Point of Capricorn\"); how\nSeverian must kill him, even though it is by the Old Autarch's desire\nand command, still he stands in the minotaur/naviscaput position; how\nFather Inire, as Daedelus of Urth, has a fondness for children\n(pre-pubescent girls) which makes him like Lewis Carroll on the nice\nside and the maze maker/monster of ASL on the nasty side (this is\npart of the common touchstone I remember people talking about).\n\nFor what it is worth, ASL probably forms a part of a cycle of stories\nabout the Urth Cycle which are not of the Urth Cycle. We could add\n\"The Sailor Who Sailed After the Sun,\" cued by the title and certain\nelements of the story. There are others--Joan Gordon's book says that\n\"Four Wolves\" (see note below) \"may be about the writing of TBOTNS\";\n\"The God and His Man\" \"might be an allegory of the Urth.\"\n\n(Note: \"Four Wolves\" in \"Amazing\" [5/83] = short shorts: \"At the\nVolcano's Lip,\" \"In the Mountains,\" \"My Book,\" and \"The River.\" The\nlast of which can be found nowhere else, to the best of my\nknowledge.)\n\n(Joan Gordon's book says that ASL is \"a Borgesian maze.\")\n\nA very poor showing if I'm to say yea or nay to John Clute's snappy\nnote regarding ASL as being a metafiction of TBOTNS. I mean, I say,\n\"Yea!\" since it was a touchstone that was in use; I understood it\nintuitively and agreed with it; but have a hard time defending it\nbeyond the vague way that I present above.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }