Short Sun blog

James Wynn · 23 Sep 2010, 15:31 · from 2010-September.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:31:15 -0500
Subject: (urth) Short Sun blog
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W1164635028B77C642B549FCF610 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W1164635028B77C642B549FCF610 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4C9B72C3.7030602 at gmail.com>

>> Gerry Quinn: Not a strong 'Spring' association.  And if we lose the 'typhoon'
>> >association, the wind connection is even weaker.
>
> Lee Berman-
> Agreed. But if the sirrocco winds of Typhon-Set were a spring-only phenomenon my
> skepticism on this theory would be significantly erased. Typhon-Set was a god of
> wind.
>

Wolfe doesn't just create easy allegories of other stories. He is 
interested in mythology as he is interested in pulp literature. But even 
more, he seems interested in the way their themes and icons span the 
globe. And he's interested in words.

The word typhon is directly connected to the word typhoon. It might well 
be that the connection was originally erroneous. It might be that the 
association was real but the supposition for how they were connected was 
erroneous. None of this disassociates the words from one another. Typhon 
--the mythical one(s)-- is a wind or closely associated with winds (but 
it might be that name for Egypt's typhon wind was as much originally 
based on erroneous etymology as typhon/typhoon--much of language is 
metaphor). To insist that Spring Wind (typhoons _do_ come in the Spring) 
ought to be Summer Wind if we were expected to associate him to Typhon 
would be like ME answering Andrew thus:
"How can you say Rhea Silvia is Bird of the Woods? Rhea Silvia was not a 
bird."

This is a myth that has been subsumed into an historical character in 
the same way that King Arthur and Alexander the Great subsumed myths 
from much more ancient periods. Those who translated the story knew 
nothing of Roman mythology or Kipling. So they did not use the 
"authentic" terms. I'm not sure how to explain this better. I can only 
recommend to you Weer's conversation with Louis Gold in "Peace".

u+16b9

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