Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Gerry Quinn · 15 Dec 2011, 19:23 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:23:32 -0000
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W50A9FF8908A2C4EB5FA2CACFA30 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W50A9FF8908A2C4EB5FA2CACFA30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <37C4859FAD55407DBA8779047C8C609B@Rover>

From: Lee Berman 

> Gerry Quinn: Certainly there are fairy-tale elements.  But we are also 
> > left in no doubt about the deep-future background against which these tropes 
> > must be interpreted.  The logic of fairy-tales will be of limited application.

> The "limited application" is all in your head. There is probably an anti-Gerry somewhere
> who thinks the futuristic science aspects of the story are of "limited application".
> Regardless of personal bias, the fact remains that both elements are intrinsic and
> essential aspects of the book. There is no basis for diminishing either of them
> except for an individual reader's likes and dislikes.

You said: ?a sword, a giant, a sleeping beauty, magic, palaces?.  But none of those are really much like their fairy-tale counterparts.  The sword has no magic powers.  Baldanders, fair enough, Severian even fights him in his castle, though not for gold.  Dorcas isn?t really a sleeping beauty ? we don?t know she was dead until she is already leaving the narrative.  Magic is tech.  Palaces... the House Absolute is underground.

What we have learned of these things from fairy-tales doesn?t really help us here.  They don?t mirror their fairy-tale counterparts.  BotNS really isn?t a fairy-tale in any strong sense.  Or so it seems to me.

Conversely, understanding magic as technology does help us see what?s going on.

- Gerry Quinn

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