mysteries of the long sun?

Lee Berman · 28 Oct 2011, 18:40 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:40:09 -0400
Subject: (urth) mysteries of the long sun?
Message-ID: <SNT123-W312775187F581207E66114CFD30 at phx.gbl>

>James Wynn: why did Wolfe put a gyrevulture at the top of Blood's roof? What narrative 
>value did it offer? It breaks up the narrative and provides some action. Also, I  think 
>it had a role in a thematic reference that Wolfe was weaving into the story.

I agree. I remember being struck by the pervasive bird theme from the first reading of
Long Sun. Character names. Musk's hobby. Flyers. Almost as pervasive as the fishy theme
which inhabits so much of BotNS. 

I get the sense it is part of a mythological reference shift for Wolfe from Greco-Roman to
Egyptian. Birds are more important to the Egyptian myths than the Greek. Of course there are 
obvious reasons Egyptian mythology is less sea-oriented than for the Greeks. (same contrast 
for mostly dry Whorl and mostly wet Urth)

I see it in the gods; on the Whorl, Typhon has a family of which there was no 
hint of in BotNS (well, aside from veiled references to Scylla and Echidna). In reading
Egyptian mythology I get more of a sense of family ties (dysfunctional but tied) among the 
gods than I do reading Greek or Roman.

Typhon does make a nice bridge between Greek and Egyptian mythology. In the former he is 
just a terrible monster but for the Egyptians (as Typhon-Set) he was more of a dark, rather 
unpleasant god. The inclusion of another crossover god, Sphigx (Sphinx) as one of Typhon's 
kids could be a slight hint of the shift from Greek toward Egyptian. (though the Egyptian 
sphinx is male while the Greek and Whorl Sphinxes are female).

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