vines

James Wynn · 21 Dec 2010, 16:06 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:06:46 -0600
Subject: (urth) vines
In-Reply-To: <535998.67542.qm at web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
References: <535998.67542.qm at web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4D10D096.109 at gmail.com>

> Marc Aramini-
> The external fertilization described by the sexual habits of the 
> inhumi seem to be either that of very low sea life or possibly 
> vegetative in nature - spore + seed, etc.  When Silk has his staff 
> made of a liana, he can astral travel without an inhumi, the staff has 
> a mouth and a face and thumps around at night.  Inhumi can survive 
> being buried for long periods of time.
> So the staff is a stand in for the powers inhumi would grant him, and 
> that's enough for me.

More than that, Fava IIRC says it is an inhumi and that he talks to it 
at night. It's more than a stand in.

> I think where James and I differ is that I don't like extratextual 
> information unless it is explicitly referenced, as I am weak on myths 
> in general.  Sure, Herodotus can help your Latro.  Gene rips off a lot 
> of cool quotes from Proust.  But drag in too much extra stuff and you 
> run the risk that Gene has never read it (King Jesus).  So I see 
> Dionysus as a general symbol of the transmogrification of humanity, 
> just like the Green Man, and I think this story is about how the next 
> stage of humanity comes about.

Marc, here's the reason I've found your hybridization theory 
unconvincing. It's too delicate. If I find a serious weakness with any 
single element (and I have), the whole thing collapses. It seems to me 
that I have to accept every bit of it or reject the whole thing as a 
cul-de-sac.

Although, I realize it seems I'm pulling stuff out of my butt when I 
make certain references that, often, people didn't know existed  or were 
only vaguely aware of, I actually consider myself pretty careful about 
ascribing sources to Wolfe.

Wolfe has read Herodotus. He's recommended Graves' "The Greek Myths", 
and I've found places in that particular reference where Wolfe seems to 
be tracking both pretty closely to the text. He's read Pindar. Anyone 
who reads the Aristaeus reference in Herodotus will recognize Silk or 
the Rajan. Especially, if they've already caught all the fairly obvious 
Apollo references. I've never read "King Jesus" myself and I believe 
Wolfe has said he hasn't either.

The problem with accepting allusions (such as Dionysus) as textual 
evidence --I mean, the reason many people find such arguments 
unconvincing-- is that you must also show what Wolfe intended with 
such-and-such symbol. And that is an extrapolation that can be heavily 
subjective. Marc, when you say "Dionysus means different things to 
different people. I think that's the reason Wolfe so often fails to 
convey important elements of plot. He is assuming people will read an 
allusion the way _he_ does.

When trying to decide what Dionysus means to Wolfe in "Long/Short Sun", 
I'm looking at the totality of the allusions Wolfe makes to him. 
Although Dionysus is strongly associated with the inhumi, he is also 
associated with the Outsider and with Silk (or maybe the Rajan). Even if 
one believes, as you do, that the Outsider is Pas & Kypris, that is a 
problem. In short, it's a snake-pit.

On the other hand, the overlaying of the story with the Life of 
Aristaeus (an inductee to the Dionysian , however, clean and easy to do 
or fail to do. It doesn't explain everything, but it gives me a 
well-lighted place to look. So I feel that I know what I've seen when I 
find it. And it keeps working. Years ago, on a lark, I suggested that 
the story of the Whorl seemed vaguely referential to the story of Midas 
and his golden touch which led to a massive colonization effort to the 
land of the Hyperboreans. It's only recently that I learned that 
Aristaeus was the supposed to be first descriptor of that land.

u+16b9

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