catamites and narrators

Jerry Friedman · 17 Sep 2002, 15:50 · from urth-v0209.mbox · original

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) catamites and narrators
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 08:50:00 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <urth-v0209-1748 at digest.urth.net>
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--- Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net> wrote:
> Marc Aramini writing originally:
...
> Among my many works-in-progress (most of which will probably never see
> light
> of day), but promised to another venue, is an essay entitled "The
> Stained
> Altar Boy: The Pederast as Villain in the Works of Gene Wolfe." In it I
> hope
> to show that while on the whole Wolfe has remained relatively
> non-judgemental about homosexuality, he has frequently cast pederasts as
> villains, both major and minor, in a number of his works; whether it's
> the
> original John Marsch of Earth; the nameless physician in Vodalus's camp
> who
> sleeps with the youth Mamas; or Pasicrates, who may see in Latro the
> ideal
> victim (and whose continued sexual exploitation may be the source of
> Latro's
> deep depression at the end of ARETE, it being sensed but not remembered
> by
> our hero); moreover, how (with the exception of the middle example
> above)
> the pederastic acts are all off-stage and never directly mentioned, but
> must
> be deduced (Wolfe being far too subtle a writer to offer us an easily
> recognized child molester as villain).

An interesting topic.  I just want to mention that I don't think
it's accurate to call Pasicrates' exploitation of Latro pederasty,
since Latro is a grown man.

Jerry Friedman

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