Sev's skull and spring constellations

Don Palumbo · 08 Jul 2003, 20:55 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: Don Palumbo <enpalumb at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Sev's skull and spring constellations
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 13:55:26 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3580 at digest.urth.net>
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Of course, Wolfe is crass enough to copy, but he does it with such
incredible style and intelligence, and never without giving it a twist of
his own.=C2=A0 BNS has Joseph Campbell's monomyth coming out its mouth,
ears, nose, throat, and all its pores (and then just does it all over
again in URS); but BNS is likely the most compelling and clever (and
easily the most elaborate) reworking of this formula in SF, which is
saying a lot, because some of the other SF reworkings (all six original
DUNE books, THE STARS MY DESTINATION, and FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON among
them) are among the best SF novels ever written.=C2=A0 [btw, is this a
coincidence? I don't think so.]

I am about to begin writing a long scholarly article on this--and
probably won't be done writing it until the end of September or
later.=C2=A0 While it will be published in print, is there some way to
eventually post it on this site (which I just joined recently) for anyone
on this list who is interested to look at (and, hopefully, add their 2
cents worth to)?

--Don Palumbo

At 11:48 PM 7/7/03 -0400, Alice K. Turner wrote:

> huh?
>
> BTW? Can someone please recap what the Miracle of Apu-Punchau
was?

The miracle of Apu-Punchau was an eclipse. Or a supposed eclipse;
actually,
as Wolfe makes (almost) clear in his afterword, it was the very
large
starship Sanru passing across the sun. This "miracle" echoes
the one in Mark
Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--which was a
genuine
eclipse. Wolfe is not so crass as to copy.

-alga

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