Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

Lee Berman · 16 Nov 2011, 15:16 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:16:48 -0500
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
Message-ID: <SNT123-W7D14F10E03D4737027CE0CFC60 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: I don't argue that the tree, the Outsider, or a God was NOT 
>involved---in fact I'd have to guess that by this time Babbie had become 
>a Vanished God himself and somehow traveled to Gaon.

I think this is clearly the case, at some level. We only have a handful (9+) of
Mainframe gods. When some of them track to embodied beings, it can't be ignored.
When you have a monstrous Mother and she seems to have a mermaid/siren daughter,
I find it necessary to track that with Echidna (myth- "mother of all monsters")
and Thelxiepeia (myth- mermaid/siren) in Mainframe.

Likewise this is true for Babbie (hus=pig) and Pig and goddes Phaea. The gender 
confusion should not distract us from the pattern. Wolfe does this gender confusion 
all the time, and with purpose. As humans, we have a built in bias toward the
primacy of gender (what's the first thing spoken of a newborn baby?). Wolfe is right
on the mark to make gender ambiguous for non-human characters and to play with our 
built in prejudices on the subject.

Antonio suggested that the male caller couldn't be Mucor because of gender but I'm not
so sure, based on this principle. Wolfe has been criticized for his treatment of
female characters but I think he is somewhat misunderstood. He is not a materialist. 
A person's spirit may react differently when encased in a body which happens to have 
a penis vs. a vagina. But ultimately it is the spirit which matters most.

I think the "card" theme found in Long Sun is worth mentioning here. Aside from the
electronic meaning, I think the playing card analogy is also intended. Cards are 
always being dealt out, then reuinified into a deck, shuffled and dealt out again in 
different combinations. This is what happens with spirits also. And this process is 
what we are seeing in Long/Short Sun.

(FWIW, from his interview quotes, I suspect this is how Wolfe sees God(s) also. 
"I think that the gods of paganism were real.". How can a Christian think this? There 
are a few ways this could be so, but one way is to use the cards analogy. 
Jahweh/Chaos/Brahma etc. are dealt out as various primeval gods, reshuffled and dealt 
again as Titans, Olympians, Roman gods, condensed and dealt out as Dionysian, gnostic
gods, condensed and dealt out currently as the Trinity, etc. Apologies if this idea is
offensive but, what the heck. I started a long running thread called Wolfe as Heretic
once.)

>Gerry Quinn: *Again, an argument of a kind you dislike: but if Wolfe wanted to write in 
>these super-hidden explanations and leave subtle clues, he had a great opportunity to 
>indicate that the Mucor Silk sees here is not so thin as usual.  He didn?t take it.  

Actually I think this format of argument is quite likable. Impersonal, unemotional and 
not dismissive or derisive. The focus is soley on what Gene Wolfe's intentions were, not
the nefarious mechinations of other posters or the virtuous purpose of yourself.

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