Peace and the birds

Marc Aramini · 19 Dec 2013, 23:51 · from 2013-December.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 16:51:35 -0700
Subject: (urth) Peace and the birds
Message-ID: <E3803ECE-5D60-4359-ACA9-63884C11272E at yahoo.com>

Lately I have made it my habit to read the majority of referenced texts in a Wolfe novel if I wasn't already familiar with them.  The green fairy book by Lang Weer gets for christmas (i think- have to check to make sure it isn't the birthday)  is interesting in that the vast majority of the stories involve the transformation of men into birds, be it king charming to a blue bird or the caliph and his vizier to a stork or even having a "half" chicken with one working side as the main character in a lesson about helping others ... And as I read through peace again I noticed that the metaphors for birds are ALL over the place. 

When Blaine and olivia run into Ricepie before going to bargain for the egg, the door opens like a bird wing.  When they go to the Lorn's, Margaret Lorn's umbrella is a black bird. Julius smart and mr tilly eat at the bluebird diner.  There is mention of the Simurgh showing up, the Persian bird associated with the tree of life.  In addition, it is known as zumrud, which means emerald, and emerald lorn is the one selling the egg olivia wants so badly.  When peacock and olivia explore the cavern, she is called bird boned.  The sidhe children become a flock of geese, slowly dying off until onlly one remains, and at one point weer thinks about being twentyfive and seeing a bright chested dead bird as all the color in the wasteland before him. Later he ruminates that murderers and their victims become one, certainly hinting that the dead bird there might resonate with Peacock and Olivia, since Olivia was the "intellectual" heart of the town. 

The relationship between the tree of life and the simurgh is particularly interesting to me, given the resonance of trees with death in the text.  Also, the final line is what Olivia calls to weer when he is reading and should be asleep, indicating that the lights should be out, this time possibly forever. 

Sent from my iPhone

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