Dionysus

Gerry Quinn · 09 Dec 2010, 19:24 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 19:24:42 -0000
Subject: (urth) Dionysus
References: <SNT123-W632BC69F83F7BF72A66FE6CF2E0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <0B7521A85E1E452882BD1580254E5474@jill>


From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>>Dan'l D. Oakes: But do recall, please, that Wolfe is an American writer. 
>>(I almost wrote
>>"an _essentially_ American writer," but realized that, while that is my 
>>impression, I have
>>no real data to back it up.) As such, he might be expected to use "vine" 
>>in the American sense.
>>Against this, of course, is the fact that he is steeped in the Classics.
>
> Almost identical to what I would respond. As a purely anecdotal bit of 
> data, I'll report that
> the geography of my childhood and adulthood life is quite similar to Gene 
> Wolfe's so it is
> possible that he and I are very close in regional American dialect of 
> English. If you said the
> word "vine" to me, my first two thoughts would be of the brown snakey 
> things seen on treks
> through our wooded areas and the things that Tarzan swung on. I've even 
> had grapes growing in
> my backyard at times but I think there of "grape arbors" not vines.

So Wolfe, so familiar with every obscure god or South American jungle bird, 
remains uniquely provincial when it comes to the meaning of 'vine'?  But 
surely, someone who knew that Dionysius was associated with wine would, if 
he heard of an association also with vines, draw the obvious conclusion that 
this means grape vines?

I think the association by way of ivy is stronge, if one feels the need to 
make such a association..

- Gerry Quinn

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