Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

Gerry Quinn · 18 Nov 2011, 14:42 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:42:27 -0000
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
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From: David Stockhoff 
> In this case, the Rajan may simply have been happy to be home again, and 
> saw the hat and wondered what he might look like in it after so much 
> time and change.
I agree ? it?s a reasonable explanation for the hat *if* we think it?s reasonable that Pike is a time-travelling Rajan, which I still don?t.

 
> I think Silk = Typhon is one such simple starting point that the reason 

> we find it hard to see is that it has been written over by all the 
> subsequent development. But rather than being a Deep Meaning, I think 
> these templates are the least important parts of the story, if only 
> because they are universal. Silk's identity is important to Wolfe but 
> not to the reader, so he leaves it covered by all his secondary and 
> tertiary construction.
That makes sense to me also.  [In the general sense, not specifically about Silk as Typhon which I can see the logic of ? this is how Typhon intends to come to Blue - but am not committed to.]
Wolfe riffs on these ideas and takes inspiration from them but he?s writing his own story.  You learn more from reading the story because the original inspiration ? even if you identify it or some of it correctly - could end up sending you in exactly the wrong direction.
Wolfe could easily drop or switch the original idea that provided an initial framework [or part of an initial framework; we also have ?a good man in a bad religion? and we have ?generation ship tropes?, and more] for a story that as he writes it develops its own skeleton to hang from.  Silk could easily transform from Typhon clone to leadership genes, or something else again, if the developing story demands it.  The story is the finished product.
- Gerry Quinn  

>
> 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.

In short, you read. A lot.

Where is Maytera Corn mentioned? I just searched all four books of LS 
for "corn" and don't see it.


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