Tracking Song and The Call of the Wild

Matthew Groves · 17 Jun 2007, 04:27 · from 2007-June.txt.gz

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From: matthewalangroves at gmail.com (Matthew Groves)
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:27:03 -0500
Subject: (urth) Tracking Song and The Call of the Wild
Message-ID: <39ed084f0706162127y56e2371ag45a283a8bc08f309 at mail.gmail.com>

On the dogness of Cutthroat, Roy writes:
> Then our views of this story are further apart than I thought. We agree
that
> Cutthroat is not the same type of being as those who are responsible for
the
> Sleigh, but I think there has to be a dog in his family tree, just as
there
> is a lion in Ketin's and a wolf in Longknife's.

I don't think we're that far apart; it's just a matter of how literal we're
being. Cutthroat is a dog-man in the story. I said, "Cutthroat is a man like
us," meaning that he is not some kind of higher being like the Great
Sleigher he's talking to. In the hierarchy of TS's universe, with it's wild
tribes and unapproachable Great Sleighers, Cutthroat occupies a position
analogous to our own.

On the divinity of the Great Sleighers:
> Where is the evidence?

First, we have the sense that they are Visitors to this world, bringing some
sort of Promise of Salvation, along with lots of new Laws. Then there's the
sense that Cutthroat is on a Pilgrim's Progress. And one of his entries from
near the end reads like a prayer of supplication: "I hear your breathing as
well, though you are far ahead in the Great Sleigh, and I wonder why it is
you cannot speak. Am I being tested? If I pass, do the right thing, if only
once, will you talk to me then?" Above all, though, there is the tall,
winged being atop the Juggernaut at the end.

On the beastness of Nashhwonk:
> If there was any telltale mark of a beast about Nashhwonk, I find no
mention of it.

The telltale mark of the beast is, ironically, his "chair," which is his
antlers.  From the context, I assume that Nashhwonk is intimating that the
sinews binding his "marriage of wood" are from men like Cutthroat, but this
may just be bluster.  Male moose are notoriously dangerous if you get too
close, and when the fuzzy flesh that covers their antlers while they are
growing begins to fall off, those bloody scraps that hang off their antlers
are pretty suggestive.

> I just don't see any evidence in TS that any great crime was committed by
> Cutthroat that got him expelled from the Sleigh.

His name is Cutthroat; that has to mean something.  I suggested that, in
light of Call of the Wild, it has something to do with Buck's tearing the
throats of the Yeehat Indians after the death of John Thornton.  But if you
don't think something like this CotW episode is in Cutthroat's past, then
you have to find some other reason for his name.  This is Wolfe, after all.

> I don't see any evidence of
> divinity associated with the Sleigh, unless it is that winged man at the
end
> of the story.

You need *more* than a winged man?  Some might have said that Wolfe lacked
subtlety.  Some might have said the religious iconography was layed on a
little thick here...

> And I'm not even sure the winged man has anything to do with
> the Sleigh.

Well, he's *on* it, so there's that.  Why the sudden agnosticism regarding
the winged man?  Do you seriously think he's a carrion bird?

> The winged man is definitely not the "you" addressed by
> Cutthroat; indeed, Cutthroat seems never to have seen such a creature
> before.

That's because he's forgotten everything, unless you think he's regained all
his memory upon seeing the Great Sleigh.  But there's nothing in the text to
suggest that.

Matt G.
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