Subject: (whorl) Copperhead

From: Alice Turner <pei047 at attglobal.net>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 10:19:28 +0000

> From: dd at Adobe.COM (David DiGiacomo)
> >
>
>http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/wolfe/wolfe
1.html
>
> Wow, I hated this story.  It had all my least favorite Lupine
elements:
> phonetic dialect, misogyny, Christianity, and an incomprehensible
ending.
> Did anyone like it?

Not me. A dumb little throwaway. What is with that urge to speak in
tongues, anyway? Do you suppose he does it at dinner parties? Yikes.

-alga

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.com

---

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 11:27:23 +0000

> tongues, anyway? Do you suppose he does it at dinner parties? Yikes.

Are there more than a handful of Wolfe stories this short* that
_aren't_ weird little throwaways?  I didn't find this one particularly
obnoxious, other than that ultra-irritating "alien woman speak with
forked tongue" dialect, just par for the course.

Wolfe should stick to novelette length, at least.  And avoid trying to
be Lafferty.

* "Three Million Square Miles," "A Cabin on the Coast," and... there
must be something else slipping my mind.

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 12:06:36 +0000

> must be something else slipping my mind.

Other good Wolfe Short Shorts:

"A Solar Labyrinth," "Westwind," "How the Whip Came Back," "Peritonitis,"
"The War Beneath the Tree," "Useful Phrases" (actually Wolfe's translation
of a Borges short story, but still good).  I also like the one that's in
Peace, the tall-tale about the cat and the big ship, and I also love the
little story about the sidhe at the end of Peace; some people also seem to
like "Suzanne Delage" more than I do.

-Rostrum

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 10:15:17 +0000

> like "Suzanne Delage" more than I do.

Oolp -- well, if you're going to go that long (I have trouble thinking
of a couple of these as "short shorts") don't neglect "The Detective of
Dreams," my single favorite Lupine text, _period_. OTOH, I would regard 
about half the ones you name as essentially conceits ("Peritonitis," 
"The Whip") or bits of fluff ("War Beneath," maybe "Useful Phrases").

My first reaction to "Copperhead" was roughly equivalent to my first 
reaction to several other Lupine shorts, notably the ever-present 
"Suzanne Delage": "Huh?" 

I'm not ashamed to say that I Don't Get It, and (unusual for me with 
Wolfe) I'm not at all convinced that "it"'s there _to_ get. there's  
bunch of stuff at the beginning that isn't followed up at all; I have 
no idea why the woman with the strange voice from another dimension 
behaves as she does; and the ending vaguely-out-of-Genesis simply 
doesn't follow from the story in any way I can perceive. I suspect 
the whole thing of being to some extent a venting of spleen at 
Wm Jefferson Clinton, who doubtless has it coming, but would probably
not have a clue that spleen had been vented at him.

--Dan'l

---

From: James Russell <fulthor at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 11:03:12 +0000

>     001 - William Ansley <wansley@w - Re:  (whorl) New Wolfe story >online 
>(spoilers for "Copperhead"
>So, what is "groose"? What about "neffer" and "grawnt"?

It seems to me that 'neffer' and 'grawnt' are 'never' and 'grunt'. "You will 
never grunt over me" again is Jane Doe denying the President sex, I assumed. 
What 'Groose' is supposed to be I dont know. "Gross", perhaps?

Also, with regards to the Short Sun, I was wondering if anyone thought that 
the inhumi's method of breeding had any bearing on the secret (or even the 
dubious Horn or Silk as inhumi option). Jahlee or Fava, I can't remember 
which, claims that the inhumi make love exactly as a man or woman would do, 
before moving on to the more technical, amphibious process. I'm sure that 
this has some bearing on the plot, although I haven't really managed to work 
out what.

   On a personal note I haven't contributed to this list before, but have
been lurking for ages. Hello everybody.

---------
Jim Russell
Exeter. UK.

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.