Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

António Pedro Marques · 12 Aug 2010, 14:18 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gUGVkcm8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:18:19 +0100
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
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David Stockhoff wrote (12-08-2010 13:33):
> On the use of the word "cognates":
>
> I think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe
> character says to a narrator, "I once met a man very like you, who had
> the same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette
> just like that, but he called himself by a different name then," how
> would you interpret that?
>
> "Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs
> who called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes
> and dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in
> time." How would you interpret that?
>
> I read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt.

Can obviously be, but the text doesn't convey that feeling to me. If it were 
to do so, I think it would be written differently. In fact I'd expect it to 
have 'a race like your own' rather than 'your own race' (thus rendering the 
point unfalsifiable, I know). When reading dialogue one must pay attention 
not only to what is said but to how it is expected to be said. In some cases 
this results in having two equally possible readings which are wildly 
different (I don't feel it's the case here, but as I said I'm at a 
linguistic disadvantage - what may be perfectly normal for you may have 
quite different connotations to a foreigner or just a speaker of a different 
variety than your own*).

(*) FI I find the expression 'I think you should go now' unthinkably rude, 
but aiui it's more or less neutral, even if not not nice, for native speakers.

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