lots of stuff

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 09 Jul 2010, 21:42 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 14:42:52 -0700
Subject: (urth) lots of stuff
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Some thoughts on Jerry's stuff.

> (Somebody asked why /Father/ Inire. ?I still want to know. ?And I'm with those
> who think he isn't sexually interested in girls, or any humans.)

I have assumed from the beginning that it was a religious title. But
then, I'm a mackerelsnapper.

> People, I think Ryan Quinn especially, have been saying they think that since
> Wolfe spent all that time on TBotNS, every detail must be significant. ?I don't
> think that's necessarily true.

I repeat my citation of Alan Moore re: _Watchmen_: "Not everything means _much_.

> I think that when he wrote the appendix to /Shadow/, he was thinking
> that it took place in our future, not in a past cycle of the universe.

This seems very likely to me.

> Executive summary: When he mentioned a monkey, he might not have remembered
> every other time he mentioned a monkey.

Yet ... we are faced with Wolfe's insistence on not repeating clues.
He seems to _think_ he has this level of control over his material.

> I too was horrified by the flood in TUotNS (though I'd stopped enjoying the book
> long before that because I felt the writing was far below Wolfe's standard).
> The afterlife doesn't mitigate the disaster unless the victims got as good a
> chance to repent as they would have if they hadn't been killed. ?True, the Bible
> says God caused a flood, but he seems to have thought it was a bad idea
> afterwards, which he apparently didn't after the flood Severian caused.

I think it is intended to be horrible.

I also think that there's an important point you're missing -- God
doesn't cause this flood; Severian and the Hiero(foo)s do. God
responded to the Noachian flood by promising that he would never again
destroy the world this way; but he doesn't promise that creatures
won't do likewise.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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