the circus of Dr. Lao

Marc Aramini · 14 Oct 2011, 18:48 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:48:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) the circus of Dr. Lao
In-Reply-To: <4E986960.9070502 at irit.fr>
Message-ID: <1318618085.92073.YahooMailClassic at web161805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>



--- On Fri, 10/14/11, Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr> wrote:

> From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
> Subject: (urth) the circus of Dr. Lao
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Friday, October 14, 2011, 9:54 AM
> Did Gene Wolfe ever mention the book
> called "The circus of Dr. Lao"? It's a curious
> book, first published in 1935 by Charles G. Finney. I
> recently got a second edition -
> University of Nebraska Press, 2002. There is curiously many
> parallels with GW writings.
> 
> The story goes that to a small town, Abalone in Arizona,
> comes (in 1930-es) the circus
> of Dr. Lao. Then the development goes along
> surrealistic/magic lines, but the style
> sounds very modern.
> 
> Direct parallels:
> 1) there is a catalogue of characters, like in the BotLS
> and BotSS
> books - in somewhat similar style
> "Dr. Lao: A Chinese
> Mr. Etaoin: A corrector of errors
> Appolonius of Tyana: A legend
> ...
> Teddy Roosevelt: An American President
> ...
> "
> 2) there is a Hound of the Hedges - it is a green dog who
> uses photosynthesis, like the Green Man
> in the BotNS
> 
> 3) There is a Gadarene Swine (one of the swine from the
> Bible, Jesus sent devils into
> it) like in the short story about the Pig in Chains by GW.
> 
> 4) There is a She-werevolf.
> 
> 5) A Mermaid
> 
> 6) A lot of dialogs (GW mentions that he loves dialogs) in
> particular, between human and
> non-human personnages - Mr. Etaoin speaks at lenght with
> the Sea Serpent.
> ...
> 
> Best
> 
> Sergei Soloviev
> 
> 

Most assuredly. Its where he got Woldercon for An Evil Guest. The sacrifice at the end may be more or less applicable to the sacrifice at the end of Wolfe's novel.

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