lameness

James Wynn · 15 Jan 2011, 03:05 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:05:04 -0600
Subject: (urth) lameness
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-w46453C8292EF6969A39077CFF20 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-w46453C8292EF6969A39077CFF20 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D310EE0.9050801 at gmail.com>

On 1/14/2011 8:04 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
> James Wynn is a devout Graves fan when it comes to interpreting Wolfe.

Just dropping in momentarily. "Devout" might be overstating it. I am, 
however, adamant that "The Greek Myths" is very useful in interpreting 
Wolfe's writings at least from the late 80s through the late 90s. Wolfe 
positively does not ascribe to Grave's perspective on myth (ala "The 
White Goddess" and the annotated sections "The Greek Myths"). I imagine 
he would be contemptuous of it. I think even the association with "I, 
Claudius" has been over-stated. That said, I am quite certain that Wolfe 
has relied heavily on Graves' "The Greek Myths" as a reference on 
mythology. In a conversation with a lister where he deplored 'White 
Goddess' and denied he had read 'King Jesus', he happily recommended 
"The Greek Myths". If you use TGM as a reference for the first Soldier 
stories, it can be quite illuminating. I think it is from there that he 
learned of 'The Laidly Worm' while writing "Soldier of the Mist".  It is 
that book he used as a source when retelling the story of The Binding of 
Zeus in "The Book of the Long Sun". And of course, I was pleased and 
surprised to have (almost by coincidence) discovered that he was 
tracking "The Book of the Long Sun" over Graves' telling of the life of 
Aristaeus. It was because I read Long Sun that I discovered that 
Aristaeus was anything but a minor story Herodotus' "History (of the 
Persian Wars)".

u+16b9

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