More on Frog and Fish

Andrew Mason · 25 May 2011, 21:19 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 22:19:51 +0100
Subject: (urth) More on Frog and Fish
Message-ID: <BANLkTinc5FcyCjmWHfb_KMLyJpjusSSPHQ at mail.gmail.com>

.
James Wynn wrote:

> Except that his name, "Spring Wind", makes no sense as a designation for
> Mars.

It makes perfect sense to me. 'March winds' is a well-established
phrase, enshrined  in  a nursery rhyme.

And a garbled retelling the Romulus tale is kind of lame and
> unimaginative. And, well, there's really nothing Wolfean about that
> reading. I contend, Wolfe just _would not do_ what you are saying he
> did. Even a Freshman writer wouldn't do something as lame as that.
>

That depends what you think he's doing with it. I don't suppose he's
just saying 'Here's a garbled retelling of the Romulus tale'. The
myths which are incorporated into the story are there for a purpose.
Dr Talos later says, in connection with _Frankenstein_, that events
can have a backward influence, so that stories from the past reflect
the future. I think the Romulus and Mowgli stories are to be seen as
pointing to Severian. Not only was he brought up by 'wolves' and
became a ruler, but his mother, it seems, was a virgin priestess, and
he had a twin.  Also as a baby he was carried in a basket. (It's not
clear why that would be important, but Wolfe seems to think it is - he
mentions baskets repeatedly.)  On the face of it, he's a better fit
for Frog than Ymar was. But of course the story isn't a record of his
life; it's a myth that looks forward to him.

We know that _Wonders of Urth and Sky_ incorporates material from our
own time, and earlier; it contains direct quotations from Genesis and
from Marlowe. Jonas recognises the Theseus story as a source, and is
able to clarify a puzzling point in 'The Student and his Son' by
reference to it. In the light of that it seems reasonable to try to
interpret 'Frog' in the light of stories extant now; and in fact
almost everything in it can be so explained. The bits that don't fit
Romulus can be explained by reference to Mowgli, and the bits that
don't fit Mowgli can be explained by reference to Romulus. If events
closer to Severian's time have been incorporated into it, it's not
clear what difference they can have made. Either Ymar's life
recapitulated that of Romulus in amazing detail, with an interlude in
which it was more like that of Mowgli, or the myths have actually
corrupted the way the story is told, in which case we can't use it to
find out the truth about Ymar. This is even more true of Spring Wind,
whose life seems to follow that of Mars in every detail.

By the way, it occurs to me that there is a source for 'Fish', other
than its being a neat counterpart to 'Frog'. It comes at the end, 'The
Plowing of the Fish'. . The author has linked the burying of a victim
under the foundations of a city with the ploughing of literal fish
into the fields,. as the Pilgirm Father did on the advice of the
historical Squanto.

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