The Best Introduction to the Mountains

Russell Wodell · 03 Jan 2002, 00:57 · from urth-v0031.mbox · original

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From: "Russell Wodell" <hse at telus.net>
Subject: The Best Introduction to the Mountains
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 16:57:16 -0800
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Many thanks to Andy Robertson for posting this fascinating essay.

There is much to discuss (for example, that Wolfe seems to have even lousier
taste in poetry than Tolkien).

Two points:

(1) Ursula K. LeGuin long ago wrote the perfect riposte to Wolfe's political
take, complaining that "Sam... keeps saying 'sir' to Fordo until one begins
to have made visions of founding a Hobbit Socialist Party."

(2) In Wolfe's account of allowing himself to read "no more than a single
chapter each evening," but allowing himself to re-read the book up to that
point as many times as he wishes, do we not have the source for Latro's
having to re-read his own life each day?

Russell Wodell

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