To Serve Man in Woldercan -- SPOILERS

Dave Lebling · 28 Sep 2008, 02:12 · from 2008-September.txt.gz

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From: dlebling at hyraxes.com (Dave Lebling)
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:12:09 -0400
Subject: (urth) To Serve Man in Woldercan -- SPOILERS
In-Reply-To: <43960c850809261136v3013e2c3u366b18371d60e0e at mail.gmail.com>
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	<43960c850809261136v3013e2c3u366b18371d60e0e at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48DEE7F9.5050209 at hyraxes.com>

SPOILERS BELOW (for both EG and "The Circus of Dr. Lao.")
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Thanks for that hit. Indeed it is. Of course, we are never told whether 
Woldercan is what people of Earth call the planet, as opposed to what 
the Woldercan-ese call it. I pulled out my copy of "The Circus of Dr. 
Lao" and found (or remembered) that Woldercan is a city, the city of the 
god Yottle. They are in the midst of a terrible drought, and are 
prepared to implore Yottle to provide them water and food, when a member 
of the audience mocks Yottle, and instead they demand water. Yottle 
sends a "storm" (of words), and says (through his high priest) that 
before he will even listen to them, they must sacrifice their most 
beautiful virgin to him. The people choose the virgin, who it turns out 
is the betrothed of the man who suggested they demand instead of pray. 
The high priest prepares to bash her brains out with a stone axe, the 
virgin's betrothed tries to stop him, and the statue of Yottle falls on 
all three, killing them. Rain and manna begin to fall from the heavens.

Comparisons to the sacrifice of Reis, betrothed of the most beautiful 
woman on the island, aren't perfect but certainly fit closely enough.

I just finished the book tonight, and haven't fully formed my thoughts 
about it. A few observations though.

The book is obviously built around an homage to the pulp fiction of the 
1930s. Detective story, theater story, Lovecraftian horror, detective 
story, "strange powers" story (notice the mention of a man named 
Cranston who could disappear), South Seas adventure/love story, and on 
and on. Wolfe is having a lot of fun here. He's also using all the 
cliches of the genres he includes, right up to the (grating to today's 
ears) naive and friendly/dangerous Natives to the Japanese Com Pu Ter 
who can't pronounce Ls. None of that makes any sense in 2100, but in 
1935 it was what pulps had.

The Lovecraft parallels were there from the first mention of the watch. 
I might also mention that the "RC" (though Randolph Carter is a great 
guess) could also be "Raymond Chandler."

The whole business of aliens in the sea of course also brings in Wolfe's 
New Sun monsters, and my guess is he grinned from ear to ear as he 
connected them to C'thulhu and to the cliche of sacrificing someone to 
the storm/volcano god.

I haven't decided yet whether Cassie is going to Woldercan for revenge 
or to get rejuvenated. I suspect the former. Compare the whole plot to 
Wolfe's story about aliens seducing Earth women, "Pulp Cover." Gideon is 
very clearly a Woldercan/human hybrid.

I have no idea about the bat-people or the voices in the car, though I 
love the Truter theory on the latter and the Bates pun. If Wolfe didn't 
do that deliberately, he should have.

My initial reaction is that it started very slowly and became better and 
better until about half-way through it was very hard to put down.

More when I've thought more.

-- Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha

Russell Wodell wrote:
> Isnt' "Woldercan" the name of the lost city in "The Circus of Dr. Lao"?
>  
> Russell Wodell
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