do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

Jerry Friedman · 21 May 2011, 23:37 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 16:37:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <2623-4dd6e500-1-28238b00@133038278>
References: <2623-4dd6e500-1-28238b00@133038278>
Message-ID: <351750.3295.qm at web114705.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

> From: Sergei Soloviev <Sergei.Soloviev at irit.fr>

> 
> I noticed (already at Nabokov's list) that people have a tendency to  identify
> as much things as possible, with slightest hint as a proof. I don't  think
> that there is enough evidence that 17 megatherians and the beasts  living in 
>the depths
> are the same creatures. To me, it seems curious that the  number 17 could
> replace other "magic numbers" (3, 7, 12... ) of our times.  Maybe this was
> the intention of Wolfe - to show that even this may evolve.  Look how much
> places etc. are like "Seven...", "Three..." nowadays. They are  not identical!

Other possibilities for 17 (in addition to the typical, or minimum, number for 
the Politburo):

A tribute to /Illuminatus!/  Incidentally, that book contains another Great 
Beast, who Gerry Quinn has mentioned: Aleister Crowley.

Or when Wolfe needed an arbitrary number, naturally he picked 17.  So did my my 
Mathematical Logic professor in about 1982.  Finally someone asked him why, and 
he explained.

First of all, it's obvious that numbers greater than about twenty are too big to 
be arbitrary.  Second, odd numbers are clearly more arbitrary than even ones.  
One is too singular.  Three is the number of the Trinity, so it's not 
arbitrary.  Five is the number of fingers on the human hand and consequently the 
basis of our number system.  Seven and eleven are naturals in craps.  Nine is 
three squared.  Thirteen is an unlucky number and the number of the original 
American colonies.  Fifteen is a multiple of both three and five.  And nineteen 
is really too close to twenty.

I seem to remember having the feeling I'd heard that before, so it could have 
been folklore that Wolfe encountered somewhere.

Jerry Friedman

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