Making sense of Castleview

James Jordan · 07 Dec 2000, 21:56 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "James Jordan" <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Subject: Re: Re: (urth) Making sense of Castleview
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 21:56:35
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0167 at digest.urth.net>
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    It has been a long time since I read this, but my take on it then was
the it was to a large extent about perception. Note the title: Castle VIEW.
The same objects are perceived in different contexts at different times by
different people: A winnebago is a spaceship is a castle, e.g.. The same
people have different names. The situation may be SF one minute, Dracula the
next, Arthur the next, Charlemagne the next, something Chinese the next,
ancient Egypt the next, etc. (I don't mean all these specifically; I don't
recall which I thought were there and which weren't. But you get the idea.)
    My thought was that *Castleview* is not SF or fantasy, but "mainstream,"
but that the events were being constantly cast/perceived/described in mythic
terms, shifting mythic terms. Thus, the key would be to figure out what
actually is happening at the everyday-world level, and then explore how
these mundane events might be also "participating" in those mythic
archetypes which the narrator has superimposed on them. As with the Emerald
City (in the Baum book), Wolfe is giving us colored glasses with which we
are looking at quite ordinary events, so that the ordinary world becomes a
"castle" in this "view." Thus, something ordinary is going on in the "wild
ride" sequence, but various people see different "wild rides" going on; one
sees cowboys, as I recall.
    But I may be COMPLEATLY WRONG about this. I've never returned to it for
a later reading.

Patera Nutria


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

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