Short Stories 112-113: The Arimaspian Legacy and Slow Children at Play

Marc Aramini · 05 Jan 2015, 22:54 · from 2015-January.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at gmail.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 15:54:31 -0700
Subject: (urth) Short Stories 112-113: The Arimaspian Legacy and Slow
 Children at Play
Message-ID: <CAF1072wDq6PGCTb2_onS8LyKXXwpCZ62j95fM1DF7pkSBmyxpA at mail.gmail.com>

(Did my previous post go through with the long write-up?)

I was just thinking that the biblical allusion with Ezekiel in chapter 10,
of the cherubim and the fire, resonates with an earlier sacking and burning
of the temple by the Chaldeans, and that the language which David
translates from the sun is Chaldean, further complicating the cosmological
relationship between pagan and Judeo-Christian symbolism in the texts. (In
some ways, the harmony invoked explicitly by the final poem justifies evil
and destruction as part of "the plan").

The geography of heaven and the celestial throne is also described in
Ezekiel, and it seems that the derelict forlorn things south of the the
throne match up with the ruins to the south of the narrator's house.

I think it quite clear that Wolfe had that biblical passage in mind in
writing Slow Children at Play, especially noting the hands facing the
light, as man who warms his hands behind him at a fire. His insectile
description of the fallen angel is perhaps derivative of his approach in
Urth of the New Sun as well.
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