Urth syllabus

William H. Ansley · 23 Apr 1998, 00:38 · from urth-v0009.mbox · original

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From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth syllabus
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:38:26
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

I would say that _The Jungle Books_ belong on this list, and perhaps other
Kipling, although I am not familiar enough with Kipling's other works to
make any specific suggestions.

Lewis Carroll's _Alice_ books are a possibility, although I think they may
have more influence on some of Wolfe's other writing than TBotNS. But there
does seem to be a definite resemblance between Father Inire and Lewis
Carroll himself.

This is even more true of Frank L. Baum's _Oz_ books. "The Eyeflash
Miracles" and, to a lesser extent, _Free Live Free_ make plain that Wolfe
read and was fond of these books, but I am not sure how much influence they
had on TNotNS.

On a semi-related note, I have been pleased to see that many of you Wolfe
fans share my appreciation of other authors as well.

(I remember reading _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ long, long ago with great
pleasure and I recall the scene in the "fake bedroom" quite well. Thanks
for the reminder, mantis!)

But, one name I haven't seen mentioned in this list is Mervyn Peake. I
enjoyed his _Gormenghast_ trilogy a tremendously. Although I don't recall
that his writing was especially "lupine," I think there are some
resemblances in atmosphere and scenery to Wolfe. Also, his short story,
"Boy in Darkness" which is closely related to the _Gormenghast_ trilogy
seems to use definite Christian symbolism although I have never understood
what Peake means by it.

William Ansley

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

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