What is your favorite quote of any work of Wolfe?

James Jordan · 11 Apr 2003, 10:59 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) What is your favorite quote of any work of Wolfe?
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 05:59:20 -0500
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At 12:01 AM 4/11/2003, Blattid cited:

>     What struck me on the beach - and it struck me indeed,
>so that I staggered as at a blow - was that if the Eternal
>Principle had rested in that curved thorn I had carried
>about my neck across so many leagues, and if it now rested
>in the new thorn (perhaps the same thorn) I had only now
>put there, then it might rest in anything, and in fact
>probably did rest in everything, in every thorn on every
>bush, in every drop of water in the sea. The thorn was a
>sacred Claw because all thorns were sacred Claws; the sand
>in my boots was sacred sand because it came from a beach of
>sacred sand. The cenobites treasured up the relics of the
>sannyasins because the sannyasins had approached the
>Pancreator. But everything had approached and even touched
>the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his
>hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic.

         Though different, this reminds me of *The Little Prince* -- the=20
fox's explanation of why the Prince prizes his rose above all others, even=20
though it is on the other hand just one rose among many. We can be sure=20
that Wolfe has read *The Little Prince* (who hasn't), though I doubt if his=20
selection of a rose-thorn was directly inspired by it (for the imagery is=20
ancient and pervasive).
         The beloved rose is, of course, the Church, when God is the lover.=20
And the Prince is a semi-Christ-figure, seeking sheep, caring for the rose,=20
dying so as to make the starry heaven "real" to the narrator. Wolfe is=20
surely trading on such traditional imagery with his rose, fountain, and=20
ship -- the fountain associated with the Spirit of God, and both rose and=20
ship with the Church. No accident that (female) Perelines hold the=20
rose-thorn in trust.
         FWIW.

Nutria

Nutria


--=20

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