Seawrack's name

Lee Berman · 30 Aug 2010, 01:58 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:58:43 -0400
Subject: (urth) Seawrack's name
Message-ID: <SNT123-W22F3E0BBD0F293DB815CC9CF890 at phx.gbl>

>Antonio P. Marques- I don't find it logical (of course the name itself makes
>sense, but not to me the way the way one gets to it). Everything is fine, 
>except why the shipwreck maiden would be called 'shipwreck' or why 'shipwreck' 
>would become 'seawrack'.

I think the issue boils down to a difference in sense of interpretation. As a 
contrast, to my theory I'll mention Borski's theory, which included exhaustive 
botanical research to come to the conclusion that Seawrack's real name must be a 
version of the sea-wrack seaweed called Laminaria hyperborea with a bunch of folk 
names one of which happens to be the Irish word "screadhuidhe". So that is Seawrack's 
real name. Great.

Perhaps this is exactly the name Gene Wolfe had in mind as SeaWrack's real name. But
for me it is a quite ridiculous solution to an openly posed puzzle. "Screadhuidhe"?
Is that really what Gene Wolfe wanted us to discover here?

This seems to me a misguided, unrealistic attempt to make Gene Wolfe's literary worlds 
be as rich and diverse, with one to one correspondence, to everything in our own
real world. When I read Wolfe I find him an author who is constantly aware that he is
writing a book, not really creating a world. 

The author-reader connection is something he is highly focused on. I think he often puts 
things in his stories which go right over the heads of his characters and are meant to go 
straight from author to reader. An example might include a painting of a moon landing that 
only we can reconize contains an American flag. It is an "in" reference. (especially to 
Wolfe's fellow patriotic Americans ;- ))

Likewise I find the association of the words "wreck" and "wrack" to be an "in" reference
for English speakers. These are odd words- very few others in English are like them.
(they are joined by wreak).  But long before I ever read Short Sun I always thought of 
"wreck" when I heard the word "wrack". So when I was first reading Blue's Waters and 
learned that Seawrack was a Siren I immediately went scurrying back to the section where 
Horn names her to make the connection.

Perhaps I am alone among English speakers in always associating "wreck" and "wrack". 
Maybe others consider such an idea nonsense. But for me the pieces fall in line nicely.
Shipwreck is just a more pleasant "eureka" sort of solution for me than screadhuidhe.

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