Subject: (whorl) gammadion

From: Ron Crown <crownrw at slu.edu>
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 10:07:54 +0000

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

Since things seem to be rather quiet right now, perhaps this is an
opportune moment for my first post.  I've been lurking almost from day
one on WHORL but haven't had much time to contribute and am also
somewhat daunted by the detailed knowledge of the text displayed by so
many of you!  I've only read BotLS once and Nabokov's dictum that "you
can never read a book; you can only reread it" (or something like that)
applies to Wolfe with a vengeance!

As a reference librarian, I can offer one tidbit of information re the
gammadion question:  from _Christian Symbols Ancient and Modern:  A
Handbook for Students_ by Heather Child and Dorothy Colles, p. 40--"The
voided cross or gammadia [note alternate spelling] is composed of four
Greek gammas, emblematic of Christ as the Corner-stone of the Church; it
is frequently seen on vestments in the Greek Orthodox Church."

There's a picture of a gammadion(a) on the next page which looks the
same as the Gammadion (1) on the Compendium of Crosses website that
someone referred to way back when (for recent subscribers the URL is
www.amulet.co.uk/symbols/crosses).  The Greek Orthodox connection is
interesting for one thing since Byzantine history obviously influenced
tBotNS; the four gammas arranged in the form of a plus (+) sign also has
the advantage (over the swastika form of the gammadion; see Gammadion
(2) on the Compendium website) of corresponding to the "sign of
addition".

Ron Crown (who has made sure that everything of Wolfe's in print AND
Lexicon Urthus are in the Saint Louis University library)
Reference Librarian
Saint Louis University
crownrw at slu.edu

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 19:53:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #6419145 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#

Ron Crown,

Welcome aboard!  Good points re: voided cross (especially since I
agree with you!).  I'm happy to learn that there is such a Wolfe book
bastion ("bookstion"?) at Saint Louis University library--keep up the
good work!

=mantis=

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From: Michael Richman <mrichman at cybernex.net>
Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 21:24:57 +0000

>(2) on the Compendium website) of corresponding to the "sign of

While it may be a symbol of the Greek Orthodox Church, the gammadion as it
appears in the Book of the Long Sun seems more reminiscent of the T symbol
from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.  In that book, the T of the Model T
became the symbol of the state religion; the purely material becomes divine.
The gammadion in Long Sun is just a set of screwdrivers that can be joined
end to end for ease of storage; again the purely material becomes divine.
In Brave New World I think it is a case of people having forgotten what the
divine really is.  As for Long Sun, Comely Kypris herself says that the
Chapter was set up as a parody of the state religion on Urth.

Michael Richman
380 Homans Av
Closter, NJ  07624
mrichman at bc.cybernex.net

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From: Doug Eigsti <douge at nti.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 10:19:42 +0000

> mrichman at bc.cybernex.net
	I agree. Remember that in NEW SUN, Wolfe was acting as the
"translator", and something is always lost in translation. If we can
presume the same scenario for LONG SUN then the choice of the word
"gammadion" may be just the closest approximation describing the artifact
worn by members of the Chapter. Obtaining a definition out of our
contemporary dictionary cannot be seen as authoritative, only suggestive. 
As Michael Richman points out the object in question is clearly joined 
out of separate pieces. "Our" gammadion is four gammas placed to form a 
cross out of the void, yet they do not touch, a necessity for a physical 
object. Pas's gammadion may, indeed, be a parody of the gammadion listed
in the citation and not a precise duplicate.

=Talon=