Favorite quotes

Dan Rabin · 12 Apr 2003, 04:34 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: Dan Rabin <wolfe-lists at danrabin.com>
Subject: (urth) Favorite quotes
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 21:34:40 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3154 at digest.urth.net>
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I agree with Blattid about the beach scene, especially "The idea
is absurd. But then, all ideas are absurd," and "I drew off my boots,=20
that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that=20
I might not walk shod on holy ground" with its echo of Exodus 3:5=20
(Moses before the Burning Bush).

I am also very fond of the speech of the mate-vendor at Saltus Fair:

"Oh, it rose all right.  When my grandson-in-law heard about it, he=20
was fairly struck flat for half a day.  Then he pasted up a kind of=20
hat out of paper and held it over my stove, and it went up, and then=20
he thought it was nothing that the cathedral rose, no miracle at all.=20
That shows what it is to be a fool--it never came to him that the=20
reason things were made so was so the cathedral would rise just like=20
it did.  He can't see the Hand in nature."

This has something in common with the passage about symbols inventing=20
us, with Wolfe twisting the modern scientific attitude around into a=20
defense of the religious attitude.

But I also agree with Mr. Danehy-Oakes that it's the quality of the=20
construction more so than the striking nature of the sentences in=20
isolation that characterize Wolfe's writing.

I just opened _Shadow and Claw_ to find the quote above, and I=20
started to marvel once more at how much Wolfe packs into the first=20
chapter of _The Book of the New Sun_.  We learn in the first=20
paragraph that the narrator, Severian, may have known his future, was=20
a torturer's apprentice, has experienced exile, and also a=20
near-drowning.  There follows an exciting fight involving some=20
aristocrats who are doing something involving a recent grave, and a=20
bunch of commoners who want to stop them.  The narrator comes in on=20
the side of Vodalus, and concludes the chapter by reflecting, "I was=20
quite correct--it was, as I sensed, perfectly feasible for me to=20
serve Vodalus and remain a torturer.  It was in this fashion that I=20
began the long journey by which I have backed into the throne."

Well, I've known people who never finish reading _New Sun_, but I=20
can't imagine anybody stopping right there, with a once-exiled=20
present ruler claiming that his acceptance that he could serve both=20
the state and its enemies made him the Autarch he is today.  Must be=20
quite a story in that.

(Of course, his predecessor was doing the exact same thing.  Did I=20
notice the connection before now?  No.  Did it have an effect on me=20
anyhow?  Of course--things act of themselves, or not at all!)

   -- Dan Rabin

--=20

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