Driving past Castleview

Tony Ellis · 09 Jan 2001, 09:59 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) Driving past Castleview
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 09:59:10 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0235 at digest.urth.net>
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Spectacled Bear wrote:

> Does that mean you can answer all, many, or even some of
> the long list of questions I posted a few weeks ago?
>
I did say I would have a bash at those myself. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes made
some interesting suggestions, here are some of mine. Three key points
first:

1. I would like to resurrect Nutria=E2=80=99s argument that Casteview is =
=E2=80=9Cabout
perception=E2=80=9D. This is a recurring theme in Wolfe=E2=80=99s work, and=
 a
particularly important one here. Wolfe makes Shields spend two solid
pages explaining to Bob Roberts how people who saw a castle with three,
four or even five towers could actually have been seeing the same
castle. He even makes a little model, for pity=E2=80=99s sake. Wolfe could =
have
saved himself a big wodge of expository writing here simply by saying
that everyone who saw the castle saw the same number of towers. That he
didn=E2=80=99t suggests to me that he wants us to think about people seeing=
 the
same thing differently because they=E2=80=99re seeing it from different
perspectives.

2. Tom Stoppard once described =E2=80=9CRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are De=
ad=E2=80=9D
as the dramatic equivalent of driving past Elsinore castle. You might
see a ghost on the ramparts, you might glimpse a funeral procession in
your wing mirror, but like poor R and G themselves you would have no
idea from these snapshots what the =E2=80=9Creal story=E2=80=9D was all abo=
ut. I find
that a useful way of thinking about Castleview.

3. We see the supernatural characters, which Dan'l Danehy-Oakes usefully
identifies as =E2=80=9Cfey=E2=80=9D, primarily in terms of late western Eur=
opean
mythology, and particularly Arthurian mythology. But as with the Latro
books, Wolfe is writing from the post-White Goddess, post-Joseph
Campbell standpoint that understands that mythical characters overlap.
Thus Viviane Morgan isn=E2=80=99t just the Lady of the Lake and Morgan le F=
ay,
she=E2=80=99s also the Phantom Hitcher =E2=80=93 a modern myth which I don=
=E2=80=99t suppose
dates back much more than 50 years.

> Is Shields really killed?
>
Nope. See the quote from Morte d=E2=80=99Arthur prefacing the book.

> Who is Liam Fee... Is he really an alien or monster, as he appears to be
> when Hwan Lee stuns him?
>
He=E2=80=99s an alien and a faerie =E2=80=93 different ways of looking at t=
he same
entity. In the fine Wolfe short story =E2=80=9CA Cabin On the Coast=E2=80=
=9D a
pipe-smoking leprechaun tells the protagonist =E2=80=9CWould ye like to see=
 me
as a tiny green man wi' horns like a snail's? I can do that too.=E2=80=9D

> Who is Lucie?
>
A tenant of Meadow Grass who has been turned into a vampire.

> Why is she pretending to be French, or if she really is French, why does =
she
> sound American for a while to Sally?
>
I think she really is French, because that's how she talks when she is
alone with Boomer. I don't know why she drops the accent with Sally, or
why she picks it up again when Seth is mentioned. Wolfe gives us quite a
few hints about Lucie, which makes me feel there=E2=80=99s something here w=
e=E2=80=99re
just not seeing.

> G. Gordon Kitty is great fun
>
Agreed. I wish there was more of him in the novel.

> What's all the business with the organ playing in the museum?
>
I can=E2=80=99t improve on Dan=E2=80=99l=E2=80=99s "cool effects?" With its=
 insanely,
ludicrously frenetic pace, and magically-transformed cats, I don=E2=80=99t =
think
this is a book we are supposed to take =E2=80=93too- seriously.

> Viviane Morgan appears to be Vivian *and* Morgan le Fay. How does she
> manage to be both?
>
Because these are just our personifications of the same supernatural
being.

> Von Madadh is King of Hounds or Wolves, and he's the dog that Sally
> thinks is Rexy. But what's he doing? Is he just there to lure everyone to=
 the
> Castle?
>
Seems so to me. Given that he=E2=80=99s the leader of Morgan=E2=80=99s troo=
ps in the
final battle, and gives Shields his mortal wound, I suspect that he=E2=80=
=99s
also Mordred.

> Is all the trouble at Meadow Grass to do with the attempts to kill Wrangl=
er?
>
Not necessarily. The camp has the misfortune to be both isolated and
located near a gateway to Faerie, so a certain amount of mischief seems
inevitable.

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

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