The Guild's Revolutionary

David Stockhoff · 22 Nov 2009, 12:32 · from 2009-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:32:30 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Guild's Revolutionary
In-Reply-To: <mailman.2377.1258856816.4134.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.2377.1258856816.4134.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <4B092F5E.1030105 at verizon.net>

True. It's because Wolfe uses so many literary antecedents. AND bad 
puns. Both of which fit into the "duh" category---if you've read the 
author in question, or if you get the pun. What a huge project that 
would be ... ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sat, 21 Nov 
2009 20:26:40 -0600 From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> To: The Urth 
Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Subject: Re: (urth) The Guild's 
Revolutionary Message-ID: <84D73864-A63A-4CC8-AD9F-CF9C7B400D25 at io.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On Nov 21, 2009, at 4:54 
PM, David Stockhoff wrote:

> > Fascinating!
> > 
> > The "apparatus" is clearly a Kafka reference, and one that has been in my memory since I first I read that story as a child.
>   

It strikes me that we could probably learn a lot if there were some way to get everything in Wolfe that seems obvious to some reader and pile all of those together in one place.  For instance, I was all aboard the "Nessus is Buenos Aires" train when I read _BotNS_ first at 13 or 14, because I was also in the throes of a Borges phase and Master Ultan was obviously, clearly, no question about it, Borges.  Same with "Baldanders."

Later I found out this might be controversial.

I strongly suspect if we actually put everything together that each reader had always said "Well, DUH, I didn't mention it because I thought everyone knew it already," then we'd actually discover a lot of stuff.

Sort-of-speaking-of-which as someone-who-likes-Baum-way-too-much (although I think Wolfe is Just Plain Wrong about Ruth Plumly Thompson), man, "The Eyeflash Miracles" is brilliant.

Adam
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