short story 7: The Green Wall Said

Gerry Quinn · 05 Apr 2012, 14:02 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 15:02:03 +0100
Subject: (urth) short story 7: The Green Wall Said
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From: David Stockhoff 

> Just read the story, and of course Gerry's summary is almost verbatim.

Well, Marc?s is more verbatim: I have added interpretations, i.e. I think it is reasonable to assume they are indeed in a flying saucer.

> Assuming everything the wall says is literally true, the aliens are 
> exactly as I described: presumably biological, but FUNCTIONALLY as close 
> to robots as they could be. And yet at the same time they are 
> also---again, FUNCTIONALLY---as close to classic 
> fairies-in-need-of-mortals as they could be. Plain as day.
>
> Naturally, there isn't a "fairy vibe," whatever that means, because as 
> is usual with Wolfe, when he makes his themes this obvious---hidden in 
> plain sight---he does not exactly put up a sign.

I wasn?t being snippy with you when I said I didn?t get a fairy vibe.  I was just saying that the aliens in the story do not remind me of fairies, as (for example) the Neighbours do to some extent.  

That said, I do have an issue with this sort of blithe identification.  Suppose that instead of what happened, the aliens had anally probed the humans just for the lulz.  Then they would have been functionally close to classic fairies-that-play-cruel-and-mischievous-tricks-on-mortals, would they not?

So what is the explanatory power of identifying a given race of aliens with fairies, if the identification is only in the form of ?they do this, so they are like the-kind-of-fairies-that-do-this??  Can we predict anything that is foreshadowed by the identification with fairies in such a case?

In ?A Cabin on the Coast?, as a contrasting example, the identification of fairies with saucer aliens is explicit and strong, and once you observe it (and Wolfe *does* put up big neon signs) the end of the story is foreshadowed, among other things.  Does that apply to ?The Green Wall Said? - and if it doesn?t, what is the benefit in making it?

- Gerry Quinn
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