Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

Gerry Quinn · 11 Aug 2010, 17:52 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:52:41 +0100
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
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Message-ID: <4F1E20DEA97841ECBAC4690958612BE3@jill>


From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
> 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 don't think so.  I reckon there are things discussed on this list whose 
origin is exactly as Lane suggests.  [I am not one for "+1" posts, but I 
think Lane's post here, and Craig Brewer's one shortly beforehand, are very 
good.]

>> 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.

I think he was being too modest there about his other novels - notably 
_Peace_ and _Fifth Head of Cerberus_, both of which preceded _BotNS_.

> 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.

I seem to recall he himself indicated, about the idea of cyclic universes in 
_BotNS_, that he was playing with the idea, but had no fixed interpretation 
one way or the other.

And I think an author can do that - perhaps even have a dominant 
interpreation of events, but still feel that an alternative interpretation 
is in some way valid.

- Gerry Quinn

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