Grand Unified Theory

James Wynn · 30 Aug 2010, 12:36 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:36:29 -0500
Subject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimv1FObxSOqq4kTjCT1xvcDDjYnPeesCv0g13+w at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTimv1FObxSOqq4kTjCT1xvcDDjYnPeesCv0g13+w at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C7BA5CD.4030006 at gmail.com>

> Dave Tallman - I know there there are Wolfean endings that just loop 
> back on themselves, like /Peace/, /Pirate Freedom/, and perhaps /An 
> Evil Guest /(my "Mysterious Margaret" theory). In these cases there is 
> a sense of futility in having to repeat the same steps with no real 
> progress. Another example would be /The Fifth Head of Cerberus/, which 
> has no time-travel but no progress from one generation to the next. 
> There are also stories where time-travel is used heavily but the net 
> result is significant change, hopefully for the better: /Free Live 
> Free/ and /The Book of the New Sun/ are examples.

Really, as Wolfe originally envisioned /The Book of the New Sun/, there 
was no real change at the end. His publishers urged him to write /Urth 
of the New Sun/. It was a bit of a compromise from Wolfe's perspective.

> I see the Long and Short Sun series as the latter type. Silk/Rajan makes moral progress through the books, ending so good he frightens his sons sometimes. He teaches like Jesus in New Viron, then goes back to the Whorl to lead and teach them as they move on to new worlds. It ends with the five-fold blessing of "Good fishing!" as Silk and his disciples become fishers of men.

At risk of spoiling the meaning of the story for you, I think Dan'l is 
right that the "good fishing" reference is to R Heinlein's /Orphans of 
the Sky/. The common greeting on their ship, and one of the 
last lines of the book, is "Good eating!" It's a generation ship 
reference. Not a religious one. (Another referenced "generation ship" 
book Wolfe tapped is Lan Wright's "The Last Hope of the Earth"--aka /The 
Creeping Shroud/--and, vaguely, his /The Pictures of Pavanne/.) Yeah, 
true, often his references have more than one meaning.

> On the other hand,m I like that you have gone out on a limb and made a 
> new, testable prediction with your theory. You expect to see Seawrack, 
> Nettle, and Marble under new identities in these volumes, as well as 
> the Rajan. I don't see any evidence of this at the moment, but perhaps 
> you can find some.

We already have some suggestions to help us along that route. Direct 
associations between characters, between multiple characters. Some 
you've pointed out. Some character associations in Silk's 
enlightenments. Some in his other dreams. And some by analogy. I expect 
it to be tricky, because with Time-travel and personality copying, 
soul-stealing, Wolfe has left himself a lot of room to work with behind 
the scenes. And then there's the clones.

> I just can't imagine that the Rajan as Hyacinth's father is one of 
> them. She calls him a "pig's arse" (EftLS p. 59) and I agree with that 
> assessment.

Hmm...Pig.

Well, I didn't under-sell it when I said this theory would be 
philosophically repugnant.

u+16b9

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