vanished people=Hieros

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 09 Nov 2011, 19:32 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 11:32:16 -0800
Subject: (urth) vanished people=Hieros
In-Reply-To: <4EBAD255.5010204 at verizon.net>
References: <1320865004.99515.YahooMailClassic at web161806.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
	<4EBAD255.5010204 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <CAJ8=rtiCjo+hq7tTcg8Tb-o_uPbhduiYDeSovkUNeS64RcjL1g at mail.gmail.com>

David Stockhoff wrote:

> The word your argument is missing here, Marc, is "iconic." That rocket
> lander is iconic. It means something in the Sun Cycle: it is itself. To
> recognize it on Green it is to understand either that there is a spacefaring
> civilization in Briah that builds cities out of rockets or that this is
> Nessus. It's like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes.

This is absolutely correct. There is clearly a _relationship_ between
the tower-lander on Green and the tower-lander in Nessus. But what
that relationship is remains indeterminate.

Some want to see it as one of identity. Clearly possible, but far from
established.

I suggest that it is one of _resonance_. The tower on Green resonates
with the tower in Nessus.

Samuel R. Delany writes in one of his essays that he insisted on
keeping a passage in one of his books where a character's foot slips
on a stone in a river, though it had no obvious consequences. Why?
Because, Delany explains, there is another passage in the story where
another character steps on the same stone and does _not_ slip. There
is a resonance between those two passages, which generates discourse
between them and so a kind of meaning.

I think Wolfe creates this kind of meaning a lot.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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