Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

James Wynn · 18 Nov 2011, 01:33 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:33:53 -0600
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
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Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> That looks to me a lot like the kind of thing y'all accuse Gerry of 
> doing - saying that something which is actually there when it needn't 
> needn't a special explanation. Something tells me that if your 
> confidence were absolute, you'd try to find a cool way in which the 
> cap actually strenghtened your case 

I really don't see a need for the callotte-donning to buttress my case. 
But it is a fact that the way "Pike's ghost" was wearing the callotte, 
then disapperates, and the callotte following to the floor, made me me 
immediately doubt we were looking a "real" gothic-style ghost. I'm not 
the only one based on the conversations at the time. The whole question 
"If this is the Rajan, then explain why he wore Pike's callotte!" 
reminds me of this question and answer:

    List: What was Typhon's goal in sending the Whorl in the first place?

    Wolfe's answer: I'm sure Typhon would have had any number of reasons
    for sending out the Whorl.

Basically, I don't understand how "Pike's ghost" wearing Pike's callotte 
undermines the understanding that he is the Rajan in Time-travel.

On 11/17/2011 6:28 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> No dia 18/11/2011, ?s 00:17, David Stockhoff<dstockhoff at verizon.net>  escreveu:
>> Not everything can be deeply hidden mythical clues.
> Oh, for crying out loud!
>
> (I suppose this is one of the in-jokes you salt your contributions with.)

Personally, I don't see myself as the anti-Gerry. When critiquing the 
theories of others, Gerry presents himself as one seeking to stamp out 
any suggestion of literary-style allusions in Wolfe's works. I, 
alternately DO NOT seek to denounce naturalized behavior in the books in 
order to insist that every cup, twitch, or sigh has a Deeper Meaning. I 
believe, that the allusions serve the story as a signal to what is going 
on. I also think the story often riffs on references to myth, 
literature, and SF pulp. It goes both ways. I'm open to allusions when I 
detect them, but I don't sit down a read every scene with the thought 
"Let's find the secret meaning here".

When I see a parallel to some outside source in a story I wonder whether 
Wolfe intended it. If I see that Wolfe continues to track the source, I 
draw the conclusion that he probably did. And so, if I come to a point 
where there is some gap in the text that leaves me wondering, I consult 
the pattern to see if it might possibly provide illumination. I don't 
expect that it must. I hope that it might.

Antonio, let me give you an example of the way I read Wolfe and you can 
see if it is useful to you as well. When I read The Book of the Long Sun 
the second time. The names of the three sybs: Rose, Mint, and Marble 
combined with the Sun St. Manteion led me to the story of Aristaeus, the 
prophet of Apollo. It just so happened that my reference on this was 
Robert Graves' "The Greek Myths". As I read on I realized "Hey, this 
part of the LS story is sort of like the next part in the Aristeaus 
story the way Graves tells it. If Wolfe is tracking this story, I should 
see such-and-such next." And I did. The story kept riffing on the life 
of Aristeaus. And then I also discovered that according to Herodotus 
(the major source for the first two Latro volumes) Aristeaus appeared in 
Italy after his death and claimed that he had been Apollo's raven-- 
hmm...there's some Silk in there. And I learned that Pindar (also a 
major character in the Latro story) had written a major work on the life 
of Aristaeus so it now I was pretty certain that Wolfe was quite 
familiar with Aristaeus. Finally, I was consistently troubled that 
whenever Incus played a part in the elements of Long Sun version of 
Aristaeus's life, he played a female (and I also noted that he played 
the role of Hesphaetus's "mechanical woman"). So that was how I decided 
Incus was female and learned the identity of the mysterious Maytera 
Corn. And I expected next that Silk would have a son, who would be 
turned into a deer and killed by his own hounds. Boy was I disappointed. 
I didn't try to MAKE it fit, though. I just said, "Wolfe isn't carrying 
it that far." Then eventually I realized that the greenbuck Horn 
encountered resurrected his body and taken his mission...until his own 
men turned on him in Green and killed him. And afterwards I realized 
that this tracked to the story of the son of Aristaeus and I was glad. 
Anyway, that's how I do it.

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