More on Ziggy

Alice Turner · 01 Feb 2000, 18:56 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <akt at attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) More on Ziggy
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 18:56:22
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0767 at digest.urth.net>
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This is a copy of two posts I sent, yesterday and this morning, that appare=
ntly didn't get through. If there is duplication, apologies, but I have a m=
ysterious history of error with the Urth list.
_______
Ratty rote:

> Mebbe. I'll need more to be convinced. I accept your overall assessment of
> the book as a collection. Maybe I should take the link between "taming" a=
nd
> "Tamar" more negatively, as a further example of male chauvinism instead =
of
> as a step in the right direction. Hmmm. That would not push me into any of
> the extremely negative interpretations we've discussed here, but would
> indicate a sadder ending than I'd originally read. Any thots, Alga?

Am I supposed to speak for Womankind (or Womynkind) as Sev and Horn respect=
ively have to speak for humanity? Very well, I'll try. Mantis sent me a xer=
ox of this story some time back, and I think mentioned that it had caused a=
 to-do in SF Sircles, but I admit to not paying much attention to either th=
e story or the to-do. (I do not generally like or even respect very highly =
Wolfe's attempts at contemporary fiction.) I read it again when I picked up=
 ST about two weeks ago. And I was really startled--kind of shocked--at the=
 mass murder scenario that mantis put forward. And at the thought that such=
 a reading had been current, at least with some people, for some time, appa=
rently.

First, a kind of generalization. I read this (again) after OBW, and detecte=
d, as I had in OBW, something entirely new in Wolfe's work, a kind of inter=
est in character that he had never particularly shown before (Weer-ites, ba=
ck off, I'm not interested in your arguments at the moment). His characters=
, mainly, are two-dimensional  and broadly drawn in poster colors; they do =
not change perceptibly; they are vivid and useful for the epic melodramas t=
hat he is writing. But in OBW, Horn's relationship with his children (let's=
 keep it to Sinew and Krait--and we could add Seawrack--and in a funny way =
even middle-aged Mucor is always a child) is interesting, volatile and thre=
e-dimensional in a way I do not find in previous Wolfe. It is leading to so=
mething. Horn is changing, and not just physically. I also find this in "Th=
e Ziggurat." There's something quite real about Emery's relationship to the=
 girls (somewhat less so to Brook), and to Tamar.

I don't think Tamar is exactly a "fairy," as Ratty said, though I bow to th=
e literary antecedent. She and her "sisters" remind me, instead, of women p=
ut forth by Joanna Russ and J. Tiptree in 70s SF, women isolated in space w=
ithout men, but with an ingrained sense of the danger and cruelty of men. T=
amar, because she is an individual and not a type, because she has no choic=
e, because she is wounded and alone, must trust Emery. It is that or die. T=
his may be a kind of "hostage mentality;" Wolfe allows that interpretation,=
 though I don't like the Tamar-"taming" analogy. I would like to think that=
 he will be good to Tamar, even if it is a somewhat Woody-Soon Yi relations=
hip.

Emery has suffered a series of shocks. I know many people to whom the death=
 of only an animal like the coyote would be pretty severe. His reaction is =
strange, preternaturally calm. From the moment he talks to David on the pho=
ne, he seems to be extraordinarily callous to recent events. But I can't he=
lp but think that he is still somehow in shock, reacting like a very bright=
 automaton. Maybe it is a sad ending. I didn't take it that way on my secon=
d reading, but looking again, maybe this leap into entrepreneurism is sort =
of sinister.

I don't know if that is an answer or even much of an interpretation. Maybe =
I can be more coherent later.

_____
A p.s. on last night's post, before I toddle off to work: the more I think =
about it, the more I think that "The Ziggurat" and OBW have certain paralle=
ls--he must have been writing, or at least planning, them simultaneously. A=
nd I also think the Woody-Soon Yi paradigm has some worth (though I hardly =
thought it through last night). The "little brown" alien women and Horn's "=
little brown" alien concubines, not to mention Seawrack, who also fits, tho=
ugh not brown, are all far younger than the hero and clearly subordinate. A=
nd the daughter motif of "The Ziggurat" is interesting (if you reject the b=
loodbath interpretation). Rather than simply castigating Wolfe for general =
benightedness, could we give him credit, perhaps, for beginning to explore =
a new avenue, even if not entirely successfully yet?

=3Dalga

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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