CASTLEVIEW and TWK

Craig Brewer · 18 May 2007, 18:46 · from 2007-May.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 11:46:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) CASTLEVIEW and TWK
In-Reply-To: <000c01c79913$091be580$8dca5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <20070518184624.42231.qmail at web36914.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

You beat me to my next post (which I was saving until
I finished _Wizard_ again).

I haven't yet decided how strong the connection
between the books might actually be. At the very
least, we're seeing something about how Wolfe deals
with Arthuriana/Faerie/Norse-ness in fundamental ways.
But if nothing else, the description of the castles is
more than similar and, I think, more than a casual
reworking of an older motif.

And, of course, I want to know if anyone in Castleview
was named Ormsby. Or Ben.

--Craig

--- "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

> My recent reading of CASTLEVIEW forced me to
> appreciate for the first time
> just how many points of correspondence there are
> between it and TWK. It's
> hard to imagine that the former didn't have some
> influence on the writing of
> the latter, and I wonder if one book can be used to
> inform the understanding
> of the other. Of course, I don't have the answer,
> but maybe it would help to
> point out some similarities.
> 
> In both books we have a young Arthurian figure whose
> name isn't revealed
> until the end and who hails from modern America.
> There is a certain
> disconnect from an older, absent brother. We have
> Odin and Sleipnir, the
> Wild Hunt and mention of the Green Man. We have
> fairies and a fairy world
> that can be blundered into, and a young, regal,
> immortal fairy woman of
> uncertain loyalties. We have a talking cat. A big
> dog. Blood sucking
> females. An ambulance on a highway. Ghosts. Giants.
> A castle in the sky. The
> mingling of Norse and Arthurian material.
> 
> The older book takes place mostly on the American
> side of the indistinct
> boundary with Faerie, the newer on the other side.
> For whatever that's all
> worth.
> 
> -Roy
> 
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