Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

Ryan Dunn · 11 Aug 2010, 17:22 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: ryan at liftingfaces.com (Ryan Dunn)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:22:34 -0400
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
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On Aug 11, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Lane Haygood wrote:

> I recall one short story that I am currently shopping out to various
> publications.  During the reading/revision period, one of my
> critiquers went on and on about the lovely allegory I was making.  Too
> bad that it was entirely unintentional, but after considering her
> comments next to the story, I had to agree that it appeared, for all
> intents and purposes, as if I had intended to put a little allegory
> there.
> 
> Which is to say that, for a mind much more cunning and devious than my
> own, I am sure Wolfe's subconscious often slips things in that he is
> unaware of, as romantic of the notion of him as a master plotter
> sitting alone in a candle-lit room, banging away at an old typewriter
> and chuckling to himself about how he'll really get us with this next
> one is.

This undermines the impossible complexity, and intricacy of BotNS. It also cheapens the literary impact of the text as a whole, to chalk up a series that has inspired over fifteen years of heated debate on a mailing list, don't you think?

I think, sure, there will be times where the reader react to something that Wolfe didn't intend to be pondered. He's said that himself. Something like "I'm surprised how much attention readers give to some things, and how little they give to others." (regarding the popularity of BotNS). But he also says he wanted BotNS to be, unlike his other novels, something that would be studied well after he was dead and gone.

That tells me that, coupled with his penchant for revision, and his thorough enjoyment of rewriting, that Gene took extra special care to connect all of "his" dots in the text. I revised my original opinion that he has an answer for everything in the book to state that every clue as he saw them is a closed loop, with no holes in the hull of his ship so to speak.

I still believe that. You can sniff out when an author is just BS'ing his way through something that is designed to appear heady, and those who have a true mastery of their own subject matter to the point that they themselves are driven crazy by the text's own eidetic quality.

...ryan

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