Mythic Women in BOTNS

James Wynn · 28 Jan 2011, 15:56 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 09:56:22 -0600
Subject: (urth) Mythic Women in BOTNS
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim++eQnP7VEUeEZktZfFJP=Rr4+VvsvWg1txxUv at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTim++eQnP7VEUeEZktZfFJP=Rr4+VvsvWg1txxUv at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4D42E726.9000004 at gmail.com>

> Do you see this story as having anything to do with the _Sun_ cycle? I
> feel it should have, as there are three stories called 'The * who *
> the Sun', and the other two are certainly connected. But if so, it's
> hard to make out.

No. Well, not directly. Wolfe is tilling in the same mythological soil 
as the Sun cycle. But by the same token he is tilling in the same soil 
as The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Pirate Freedom, and (my favorite Wolfe 
short story) "Counting Cats in Zanzibar". That is, it is a 'Flying 
Dutchman' story (if you kill the Flying Dutchman you become the Flying 
Dutchman).

And, also, the horror story "Hunter Lake" (collected in "Starwater 
Strains" is a Flood story with a Flying Dutchman theme. The thing is, 
"The Sailor Who Sailed After the Sun" is just a very Wolfean story.

Incidentally, the collection "Strange Travelers" is sort of a companion 
to "Innocents Aboard". Once could well imagine them being happily 
combined into a single volume.

>> Unfortunately, that story revealed that Wolfe is capable of major
>> mistakes in literary references.
> Can you expand on that?

On reviewing my evidence for this, I'm inclined to take it back. That 
is, I suspect Wolfe was right based on the reference text he was 
probably using. Let me explain.

The monkey is from the ancient Egyptian cosmological work "The Book of 
Am-Tuat". The whole ending of the short story is that in that book, the 
image of the monkey and only the image of the monkey has a little "star" 
over it. But when I checked it out, my source showed the same star over 
multiple characters in the Tenth Hour of the Night and in other hours of 
Am-Tuat. When I had my copy of 'Innocents Aboard' signed, I confronted 
Wolfe on this subject and he just shrugged "Huh, well you know more 
about it than me. I thought there was only one". Since I really like 
this story I was disappointed in that answer.

However, after looking for online references to answer you, I now 
believe that Wolfe was using as a source, EA Wallis Budge's "The Gods of 
Egyptians".
http://books.google.com/books?id=xBtLAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA198&ots=ZOQlT_aWIh&dq=monkey%20%22with%20a%20star%20over%20his%20head%22&pg=PA197#v=onepage&q&f=false
It is a classic and seminal 19th century reference. And in the drawings 
of that work, I see that only the monkey has a star over his head.

Incidentally, I personally believe Wolfe was smarter than his sources 
and correctly deduced that the "star" is the Sun...that is, the that 
gods portrayed are stars and star groupings along the ecliptic. To me, 
this is seems like a good bet from the more recent images. So, good for him.

u+16b9

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