Dinner & the Long Sun

James Jordan · 03 Jun 2003, 18:27 · from urth-v0306.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Dinner & the Long Sun
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 13:27:40 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0306-3447 at digest.urth.net>
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I won't bother with spoiler space. Fair warning.
         Dinner presents LACity (sp?) as a new Jerusalem, with walls and=20
gates, as in the book of Nehemiah. Also a new Eden appears, with Satan (the=20
space vampire) at its center. Alcohol (the wine of the Lord's Supper) keeps=20
the protagonist sane enough to deal with "satan." Also remember the=20
Biblical prohibition on consuming blood; only the blood of Jesus is=20
allowed, and that by means of a symbol. IIRC, once again as in so many of=20
Powers's books, the protagonist receives wounds in all the stigmata places.=20
He's out to redeem a "bride" (the church). Except for being out to save a=20
woman from the clutches of evil, however, I don't see any of this in Long=20
Sun. Viron is more like Judea as a whole than Jerusalem in particular (the=20
ayuntamiento being the Jewish leaders; etc.).
         I can't recall many details of the narrative. It does not appear=20
to me that there is much of Dinner in Long Sun, save as you point out maybe=20
the connexion between a character named Blood and the drug Rust, which sure=20
looks like an allusion to dried blood to me after reading your post. Blood=20
is red because of iron, after all. Doesn't Blood promote the use of Rust;=20
isn't he partly a drug lord?
         I think you may be right about an oblique allusion or influence.=20
But so far, it may just be a coincidence -- they're both Catholics of=20
sorts, and writing in the same genre about the same kinds of religious=20
things -- or a deep memory of Powers surfacing unaware in Wolfe's writing.

Nutria


--=20

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