Subject: (whorl) Re: Incus Nemius

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:06:00 +0000

[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #7628847 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#

Patrick,

There you go!  See, it isn't so hard or time consuming--we'll get an
essay out of you yet!

Good point, re: Scylla's savage plans.  Invokes the whole "golden
bough" thing--priest of grove at Nemi can only be replaced by the
candidate who successfully gets a sacred bough (uh, avern plant?) and
then kills the priest in hand-to-hand combat.  Auk for Calde'!
(Another reason for Hackum to push Wee Flea down a pit and to his
death--like Den to Bobby Black in PEACE, perhaps?)

Good point, also, re: the relative ease of tracing the gap between
utterance (text) and interpretation (self-serving "spin") in the lesser
characters where reader is presented with both.  I.e., since we don't
have Silk's Enlightenment verbatim and in toto, we wonder about his
"spin factor"; it is a delight and a relief to see the clownish Incus
bloom into the would-be tyrant, just as the Richelieu-like Remora
descends into a sympathetic character.

=mantis=

P.S.  And thanks for the plug!

=m=

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