Subject: (whorl) Amazon has RTW cover up

From: Michael Purdy <mcp at jhu.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 14:33:03 +0000

FYI all, the cover for Return to the Whorl is now up on Amazon.

This one's got me stumped.  Who's the giant?  And is that a humanoid figure 
in his hand?  It's easy to lose the  little finger on the giant's hand, but 
if you can separate that finger out (it points in a different direction 
than the other fingers), there appears to be an arm from the smaller 
humanoid figure propped up on it.   You can see a waist and legs, but the 
head of the figure and one of its hands are radiating so much light it's 
very tough to be certain.  About the only thing that can be said with any 
certitude is that Oreb's on the cover.  Very tiny, but it's gotta be Oreb.

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 11:45:18 +0000

I hate to say it, but my first reaction is that the
giant's face looks more than a bit like Wolfe's. I
hope this doesn't turn into some metafictional crud.

(Dammit, Dan'l, have faith in Wolfe's taste. Even 
if it turns metafictional surely it won't be crud.
"The Last Thrilling Wonder Story" certainly wasn't...)

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From: Michael Purdy <mcp at jhu.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 15:24:55 +0000

Dan'l,
	I just popped over to the one photo of Wolfe online that sprung to mind 
(it's on Paul Duggan's Wolfe page), and darned if you ain't right.  That 
giant DOES look a lot like Wolfe.
	Although I love just about everything Wolfe writes, the prospect of a 
metafictional intrusion into/resolution of the Whorl storyline provokes 
pangs of dread.  I'm hoping this was more of a tip of the hat to Wolfe on 
the artist's part.
	Can anyone make anything out of that funky headgear on the giant?
	Michael

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 00:33:41 +0000

At 2:33 PM -0500 11/22/00, Michael Purdy wrote:
>This one's got me stumped.  Who's the giant?  And is that a humanoid 
>figure in his hand?  It's easy to lose the  little finger on the 
>giant's hand, but if you can separate that finger out (it points in 
>a different direction than the other fingers), there appears to be 
>an arm from the smaller humanoid figure propped up on it.   You can 
>see a waist and legs, but the head of the figure and one of its 
>hands are radiating so much light it's very tough to be certain. 
>About the only thing that can be said with any certitude is that 
>Oreb's on the cover.  Very tiny, but it's gotta be Oreb.

I don't know why everyone thinks that the larger guy on the cover is 
a giant. The glowing guy could be teensy. And the bird could be much 
farther away than everyone is assuming.

Maybe one of the major influences on _RttW_ is _Darby O'Gill and the 
Little People_.

Or maybe not.

-- 
William Ansley

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 11:01:08 +0000

Since we're all just guessing in the dark, here's mine:
    1. Neither Silk nor Horn is Christ, but both are trying to be
Christlike, so to speak. They occupy that position in the narrative, to some
degree.
    2. Oreb is not a dove or the Holy Spirit, but again, to some degree he
occupies that position in the narrative.
    3. Now we have a giant, holding what looks like a man, with Oreb flying
over the man. I'd say this person is linked to the Father.
    After all, among the dozens of things Wolfe is doing in these novels,
one is to show the mysterious work of the Christian God (the Trinity) in the
providential direction of history, through His agents.
    One thing I think we can assume, and that is that, like the other two
covers, this is an illustration of an event in the course of the novel.
    A truly wild guess would be that the giant is Severian, grown large
somehow (like Baldanders).

Pat. Nut.

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From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 14:06:07 +0000

>pangs of dread.  I'm hoping this was more of a tip of the hat to Wolfe on 

There's a lot of metafictive content in _Return to the Whorl_, but it's
very much in keeping with the metafictive content of the first two
volumes--that is, an awareness by the author of the work that he is writing
a work about his life, and also commentary by other hands upon that work.
Gene Wolfe doesn't appear in it (at least, not that I noticed; Robert
Borski is much better than I at spotting hidden Wolves in these works). 

The character depicted on the cover of _Return_ is new to that volume, and
has not been seen (or mentioned, I believe) previously. 

I don't think the illustration looks particularly like Wolfe, but in my
mental image of Wolfe, his glasses are an inseparable part of his head. And
these days, he's got a walrus mustache, so he looks even less like that
picture.

-- 
Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://www.nyrsf.com