In Glory Like Their Star, initial reading

James Jordan · 19 Sep 2001, 10:00 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) In Glory Like Their Star, initial reading
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:00:58
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0699 at digest.urth.net>
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This looks promising. Only two notes:

At 11:04 AM 9/19/2001 +0100, Joshua wrote:
>'skun' This seems to be the only made-up word in the story. Why?

         A variant of 'sun'? Somehow?


>'(The natives) speak for a long time when they have begun' and the narrator
>is also 'unable to control (his own) loquacity.' This implies similarity on
>another level. See below for my idea with respect to this other level.

         I took the loquacity of the natives to indicate ritual. They=20
approach this "god" with a continual stream of repeated phrases. Also, from=20
what I recall, their repeated phrases were requests for gifts, which=20
resembles pagan religion: bring your gifts/bribes and feed your gods and=20
ask them over and over for benefits. The Biblical or Judeo-Christian notion=20
of sacrifice is rather different: self-killing by proxy as a confession of=20
guilt and a plea for mercy. Requests for benefits come afterwards, and=20
Jesus said not to be overly repetitious, and the psalms are quite=20
unrepetitious in form. Thus, I took it that a kind of pagan religion was=20
being pictured by Wolfe.

Nutria


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

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