Short Story 45: Feather Tigers

nate jarvis · 09 Sep 2012, 13:47 · from 2012-September.txt.gz

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From: natejarv at gmail.com (nate jarvis)
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 15:47:29 +0200
Subject: (urth) Short Story 45: Feather Tigers
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My understanding is that the usage of "paper tiger"  predates Mao by
quite a bit. I keep thinking in school they told us Confucius made a
reference to paper tigers in connection with bad government, but can't
find any references to that now. Chinese wikipedia says Wu Dalang
makes a reference to paper tigers in _The Water Margin_; it's zhi-hu
instead of zhi-lao-hu, but the idea seems to be the same.

It's been years since I read this story, but I didn't think there was
anything in the jungle. Quoquo scoffs at the humans for mistaking
tricks of light that look like dangerous animals for actual dangerous
animals, then when he hears the cats-turned-tiger have escaped, he
sees feather tigers everywhere. I took it more as Wolfe lampooning the
hubris and condescension with which many contemporaries view ancient
peoples or their beliefs (or those of isolated peoples who exist in
modern times but until very recently would have had lifestyles and
belief systems more similar to ancient Eurasians than to contemporary
Eurasians).  I actually laughed out loud when I finished the story.

I didn't even make the Chesire cat connection--I just saw Quoquo's
bunny-like appearance as a way of making him both comical and
vulnerable.

Nate.

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