Fish and Caves

Lee Berman · 24 Dec 2010, 17:17 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:17:21 -0500
Subject: (urth) Fish and Caves
Message-ID: <SNT123-W146E587ED1F3035CA74E11CF1D0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: I thought you raised some interesting associations, but there was nothing 
>really specific to grasp. Some of those fish associations are likely meaningful - others 
>probably are not.  How do we decide which are which?

Gerry, once again I won't pretend to understand the basis of your probability estimates.
Treating fiction like a scientific assessment seems to miss the point. I suspect you are not
actually counting and calculating anything in your estimates but simply using your intuition to 
decide what you like and, most often, don't like, just like the rest of us.

Now for me, ever since I learned that Wolfe did not invent any of the strange terms or names which 
are found in BotNS I have been operating on the basic assumption that there is not a single passage 
or word which does not have significant meaning, with most having meaning on several levels.

So you asking which parts of the book are meaningless is, for me, an odd question which betrays
an unfulfillng quest. I consider it a possible goal to read BotNS and have none of it seem like
pointless gibberish (as parts of it must, to the first-time reader). I'm actually pretty close
to this goal. I have a long way to go for Long and Short Sun though. Your quest to maintain
meaninglessness is sort of interesting but not really something I could ever share.

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