Marcus v. Franzen = Unexpected Wolfe sighting

Seth Lombardi · 23 Oct 2005, 21:02 · from 2005-October.txt.gz

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From: sethlombardi at hotmail.com (Seth Lombardi)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:02:57 -0500
Subject: (urth) Marcus v. Franzen = Unexpected Wolfe sighting
Message-ID: <BAY7-F13D265B7FEAF234D184DA4D7740 at phx.gbl>

>As far as your own posts, Adam, I have my own problems with The Knight but 
>the ones you immediately bring up are not among them. The fact that Able is 
>so clearly portrayed as a punk or a creep is not a coincidence, and 
>indicates that Wolfe intends to give us this impression. So I don't think 
>Wolfe intends to portray Able as, or have us think of Able as "the 
>bees-knees". Other characters in the novel clearly do, however, and part of 
>the (overwrought) point is to lead one to examine just why that is.

I also felt Able was portrayed purposefully as having serious problems: 
after all, he ends the book living in a world bellow human, with his 
sub-human semi-imaginary girlfriend. In some way I took Able's limitations 
as being a commentary on the limited (to Wolfe) heights of pagan, 
pre-Christian heroics and morality, and in the same sense simple human 
limitations and mixed motivations for doing good and winning the girl.

As for Rich's comments in the blog: I wouldn't go as far as to resort to 
name-calling but he seems to be falling into the trap of deconstructing 
sexual "weaknesses" out of the text, images and subtext that very well be 
there... but fail, for me, to somehow shame me out of enjoying a work.

seth
*****************************
Seth Lombardi
sethlombardi at hotmail.com
http://sethlombardi.blogspot.com/
AIM: melombardi
"Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their 
likeness makes us laugh" -Pascal

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