living dolls

Andy Robertson · 26 Sep 2002, 19:23 · from urth-v0209.mbox · original

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From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) living dolls
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 20:23:55 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0209-1790 at digest.urth.net>
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IMHO the real root is the nursery/toy/steadfast tin solder  vibe seen well
in "The War Beneath The Tree".

As I reflect, it seems to me that all Wolfe's artificial people- from the
chems of the Long Sun, through the adult-sized puppets of  <story whose name
I forget>, through Mr Million and the Horars (note name of tank), are, more
than anything else, to be understood as walking *toys*.

Gods' toys, maybe.  But essentially toys.

Hence their sexual impotence.

Toys have nothing between their legs, and neither do robots, however
"superior" they may be in other ways.

In the Long Sun books this is hypostatised into the difficulty the Chems
have in reproducing, by their non-sexual, but plausible, means.

There is no reason why they should have this difficulty - it could be
arranged otherwise - but they must have it, because they are toys, and toys
do not have babies.

And also this is the key to their personal characteristics and the odd
limitations of the way Wolfe uses them.

Stop thinking of them as robots.

They are dolls!   Big grown-up dolls!,

Nurse and housemaid dolls for the female chems, soldier dolls for the male
ones.

    hartshorn

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 7:43 PM

>
> The Tin Woodman may have been an *inspiration* to Wolfe's images of
> synthetic people, but can the connection be drawn any more tightly?
>
> -- Crush

--=20

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