Fairies and Wolfe

Lee Berman · 28 Mar 2012, 20:19 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:19:14 -0400
Subject: (urth) Fairies and Wolfe
Message-ID: <SNT123-W41AB045684A92C190DC3F4CF4B0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: As far as I remember, I stated that there seem to be 
>no significant fairy references in the Book of the New Sun.

Ah, okay. For me, the small Tzadkiel is significant enough to qualify.
The Armiger's Daughter also seems a nod in that direction. Mentions of
kelpies and nixies, etc. also seem to allude to the faerie world.

>The Shadow Children in the second part of 5HOC are an interesting inversion 
>of the trope, since they are the devolved descendants of humans, and the 
>viewpoint characters are the aliens.

I think I remember this disagreement. I tend to agree with James that the
Shadow Children are shapeshifting shadowy natives to the planet who 
approximate humans partially as Shadow Children and more fully as abos. Both
explanations are given in the text and even The Old Wise One is confused about
his/their real origin. I guess each reader may choose the explanation they prefer.

>In particular the Neighbours are, or at least recently were, accomplished tool-users 
>who built spacecraft among other things (and there is no reason to think they are not 
>still equally accomplished in their own dimension or whatever), and the inhumi are not 
>especially fairy-like; among mythological beings their most obvious resemblance is to 
>vampires.

Yes, I meant to say that Neighbors were fairy-like and had an animal quality to them. I
remember thinking of centaurs when I first read OBW but the later reference to Dionysus
made me think perhaps goats were the intended reference. I suppose the connection to
Horn and his ungulate named sons is not coincidental, either way.

The Neighbors were formerly highly civilized and industrial etc. They were also war-like
and genocidal (perhaps due to Inhumi influence). Anyway, I get the impression they have
moved beyond all that by the time Horn meets them. They don't seem like futuristic,
technologically advanced aliens at all. They are campfire types, show no use of technology
and have a certain nobility to them.

I wonder sometimes if Wolfe attaches spiritual advancement with losing technology. The 
end of UotNS might suggest it. Unlike the Hiero-types (but like Severian), the Green Man 
does not seem to need machinery to walk the time corridors. Plus the Green Man and some of Severian's musings seem to suggest that carnivory is also something spiritually advanced 
humans will leave behind. If the Neigbors are ungulate in nature it might suggest they
are not carnivorous (in stark contrast to Inhumi).

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