Neil Gaiman on Wolfe and Sorcerer's House

Mo Holkar / UKG · 09 Apr 2010, 22:46 · from 2010-April.txt.gz

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From: lists at ukg.co.uk (Mo Holkar / UKG)
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:46:59 +0100
Subject: (urth) Neil Gaiman on Wolfe and Sorcerer's House
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At 22:52 09/04/2010, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> >> Some times it's madder than others: he was on the nose with all the
> >> clues
> >> that the 5HC narrator was "Gene Wolfe", but also nominated the alzabo as
> >> a
> >> sort of gene-seeking wolf.
> >
> > I thought it was Robert Borski who nailed this one first.
>
>Could be; it was maybe about 1996 when Neil and I discussed his theory
>that the other GEnie network Wolfe topic denizens like Mantiss and Joe
>Mayhew seemed to already know about. CAVE CANEM seems to imply that
>LEXICON URTHUS (1994) helped Borski figure it out, so it might be a close
>thing.


I'm not sure about that last:

"Once upon a time, a not-so-young man read a book called THE FIFTH 
HEAD OF CERBERUS ... Then along came a book called STROKES by John 
Clute, where he learned FIFTH HEAD had a somewhat more sophisticated 
structure and that it was even possible to deduce Number Five's real 
name, followed still later by Michael Andre-Driussi's LEXICON URTHUS..."
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=CaveCanem.Intro

Suggests to me that he deduced the name after reading Strokes (pub 
1988), but before reading LU (pub 1994).

best,

Mo


# ~ # ~ #

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