Typhon's nature

David Stockhoff · 16 Oct 2011, 19:04 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:04:38 -0400
Subject: (urth) Typhon's nature
In-Reply-To: <A4E28FE8E22444C7A6811C089857A431@Rover>
References: <SNT123-W8268D6E4D21E532CE9C8ACFE70 at phx.gbl>
	<A4E28FE8E22444C7A6811C089857A431@Rover>
Message-ID: <4E9B2AC6.1030207 at verizon.net>

On 10/16/2011 8:18 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* Lee Berman <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
> > > Show me where the text implies Typhon engaged in sacred incest, and
> > > I?ll be interested.
>
> > This has already been done. WOlfe chose to name Typhon-Pas' wife
> > "Echidna". Mythological Echinda was a snake-woman and was the sister 
> and
> > wife of Typhon and the mother of Scylla and Sphigx (sphinx) among other
> > monsters.
> Wikipedia gives two accounts of Typhon?s origin, and four for Echidna. 
> Of the eight combinations, Echidna is his sister in one and his niece 
> in one. Wikipedia is not exhaustive and others could be found.
> I notice you don?t mention Typhon?s father. Could that be something to 
> do with the fact that his father was TARTARUS? In BotLS, the Whorl god 
> named Tartarus was clearly Pas?s son. [In the Hera origin story, 
> Typhon had no father.]
>
> > Long Sun Echidna is a snake woman, wife to Typhon and mother of 
> Scylla and
> > Sphygx. If we understand that there are puzzles to solve in this 
> book, the
> > sibling status of Typhon and Echidna isn't a difficult one to solve.
> I think you (and some others) greatly misunderstand the nature of 
> Wolfe?s books. You seem to think of them as some sort of puzzle in 
> which a hidden underlying story, cloned from some ancient myth or 
> other, is disguised as a science fiction story. The object (you think) 
> is to peel away the extraneous matter and locate the crossword clues 
> to the true story you think is lurking underneath. You clutch at every 
> possible classical reference because with those there?s always some 
> way to play six degrees of Kevin Bacon towards whatever scheme you are 
> trying to impose on the story.
> Why would Wolfe engage in a complicated, arbitrary, pointless scheme 
> such as this? He is writing his own stories. Science fiction stories. 
> Yes, he enriches them with classical references, but he is not 
> rewriting the classics. Yes, he loves to place keystones of his story 
> in a subtle and understated way, but they are always there in plain 
> sight and they are NOT in general found in proper names. [To place 
> them in proper names would in fact be a gross dereliction of artistry, 
> excluding the reader who is attentive but lacks a particular literary 
> background. I will allow that they can be in proper names as well as 
> in the story proper, and that exceptions could be made in certain 
> circumstances.]
> The story of the BotNS is its own. Wolfe has obviously taken 
> inspiration and ideas from many sources, but these sources are just 
> raw material and not in any sense what the story is about. Wolfe takes 
> the raw material and twists it into the shapes he wants, and the 
> texture of it is still there and if he is successful the texture fits 
> the story he is telling. But it is subservient; it is not part of the 
> story.
> Read the text with care and you will find answers in events and in the 
> words of the characters. Chase allusions instead and you will produce 
> random noise which you will then interpret to fulfil some arbitrary 
> thesis, just as we can hear whatever music we like when we listen to 
> white noise.
>
Gerry

All this is very true and well put. Allusions are allusions and, unless 
a particular story is so well known that any hint of it carries great 
weight (and there is after all one Greatest Story in particular that 
Wolfe retells in semi-hidden fashion in TBotNS that undeniably fits that 
description!), they should be taken in small doses. Six degrees of 
separation is way too many.

But here we have kindergarten mythology leaping out at us. Echidna is 
well know to be the mother of monsters. Typhon's and Echidna's family is 
a veritable pantheon of divine monsters. The onus is on you to deny a 
theory of how this situation came about and what it means in New Sun and 
Long Sun. You'll need to do more than sit back and yawn if you wish your 
denials to be taken seriously.

Why should Wolfe care if he recasts a father as a son to create this 
debased and pagan Olympus? You say yourself that allusions don't matter! 
Wolfe is already necessarily picking and choosing among disparate 
mythologies. I see Milton's Satan in there plain as day, because Satan 
raped his daughter to produce all the sins of the world. I could go on.

But incest couldn't possibly happen in New Sun! No, Wolfe would avoid 
this topic, the bread and butter of half the mythologies (and ancient 
dynasties) of the world, to avoid upsetting Gerry Quinn with the 
covertness of its secret histories.


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