Literal or metaphor?

Lee Berman · 14 Apr 2013, 04:41 · from 2013-April.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:41:11 -0400
Subject: (urth) Literal or metaphor?
Message-ID: <BLU175-W350B878EF4C30E7B9AB7D8CFC30 at phx.gbl>

>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: The point here is that saying 
>that something is a metaphor
> doesn't mean that it isn't also literally true -- 
>or even _primarily_literally true.

Thanks, Dan'l. I liked that post a lot.

>Gerry Quinn: Delaney's point is true, but I do not think 
>literal metaphors are at too much risk of being ignored 
>on this list!  Freud's "sometimes a cigar is just 
>a cigar" may also be useful at times...

Also a good post. We must hope that every thoughtful,
analytical poster here has a sort of literary "concience"
to tell him/her when he has speculated too far to be
plausibly inspired by the text. But whose conscience
allows too much and whose does not allow enough? The only
possible judge is Gene Wolfe and he isn't saying much.

In reading Wolfe interviews, I am struck by one thing- he
really expects a lot of his readers. Too much, in many cases.
I'm currently thinking of when someone asked him if Pig was a
godling. He answered in an annoyed tone as though it was far 
too obvious that he was, in fact, a godling.

It wasn't obvious to me, nor to anyone else I know of. But once
I was forced to think about it, I could see that the blindness and
the manner of speech invoke Tartaros and Auk and the name Pig invokes
Phaea and he first appears in a chapter titled "Great Pas's Godling".
He isn't as big as the other godling but he is big and knows a lot of
stuff for a blind guy who seems to appear out of nowhere.

If I needed the interview to catch that one, what other stuff have I 
missed. It just seems more likely that I've missed more than I've
(incorrectly) invented.

(FWIW, I once had a debate with Roy Lackey about whether the names of
Horn and his family are meant to designate a connection via bovines. I
recently noticed that when Horn and Pig are trying to decide a Vironese
name for him, the big guy suggests "Bull" for himself and Horn smiles
and says, "People would think we were related". So I think that resolves
that.

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