Tracking Song haunts me

Clifford Drane · 12 Dec 1999, 03:36 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Clifford Drane" <dranec at hotmail.com>
Subject: (urth) Tracking Song haunts me
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 21:36:12 CST
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0608 at digest.urth.net>
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I keep thinking about the story "The Tracking Song", enough to search the=20
Urth lists for insight. This seems to be one of the most obscure Wolfe tale=
s=20
- I have an idea that doesn't exactly explain many details, but might be a=20
start of another way of thinking about the story. I tend to shoot from the=20
hip, get excited about a theory (see my infrequent posting) to then see it=20
shot down. I submit myself to the firing squad once again. :)

I think The Tracking Song could be a story about the origins of an aborigin=
e=20
myth, not told in the way an elder tells a youngster a story to explain=20
Creation or somesuch belief. But told as if the myth truly happened, from=20
the first person WITHOUT completely reducing the magic to science (that's=20
the key). I recall Mailer's Ancient Evenings, and the very detailed=20
retelling of the main story behind the Egyptian mythos - how details were=20
told without destroying or explaining away the magic. Also, if any of you=20
saw the animated version of Watership Down - the brilliant prelude which=20
tails the tail of Creation from the standpoint of rabbits (ok, so who got=20
that pun?). The "realities" in each of those stories were interwoven with=20
the myth - and I think we're encountering Gene's version of this with the=20
typical omitted-detail-method-of-telling-a-story-by-not-telling-a-story tha=
t=20
is his calling card.

I think Tracking Song could be taking us inside a world that still lives in=20
the mythological. I also think trying to find an American Indian (or other=20
culture) parallel myth is a red herring.

Blindfold, please. :)

CCD

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