blood, clute, beckett

maa32 · 26 Aug 2003, 07:10 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) blood, clute, beckett
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 00:10:42 -0700
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This message is going to seem random, but oh well.  Hopefully the well-read=20
literary types will answer my question in the last paragraph.

First comment - it seems to me that when Silk goes to the market to thank t=
he=20
Outsider for enlightenment, the suitable sacrifice he finds in not Oreb, bu=
t=20
Blood.  Oreb is the wrong one; Silk must expiate the sin of the augur he=20
emulates, Patera Pike, by erasing Pike's old errors.  Notice that he actual=
ly=20
does cut Blood, as he intended to cut Oreb.  Myabe that's been commented on=20
before, but it struck me as quite obvious this time.  It is also interestin=
g=20
that from the very beginning we know that Patera Pike also received=20
enlightenment.  Some on the list may think that Silk was programmed to get=20
that big burst of prescience when he was frozen; I don't know.  If so, that=20
might say something about Pike as well.  So anyway, it became quite clear t=
o=20
me this time that Blood was Silk's sacrifice and he even met him at the mar=
ket=20
where he was looking for a suitable one.

Now 180 degrees to Mr. Borski's assertion that John Clute was sharp - perha=
ps=20
so.  I never liked the part in his large encyclopedia when he said "perhaps=20
Wolfe has never had an original science fiction idea, but that isn't where =
his=20
importance lays".  I don't understand how Clute came up with the idea that =
the=20
Autarch was Severian's mother (I think that was Clute, wasn't it?!). =20
Otherwise, I guess I agree.

Now, speaking of absurd interpretations, this was the question I was hoping=20
someone on the list could answer (I just don't know who else to talk to!).=20
It's kind of a Wolfe-like case of enlightenment, similar to the one I got i=
n=20
Peace when I first realized the narrator was dead. Has anyone read Beckett'=
s=20
Trilogy "Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable"?  First, as I read The=20
Unnameable, it made no sense.  Then I realized that the narrator was a peni=
s,=20
perhaps Malone's penis, who mythologized his existence by claiming that he=20
used to have limbs, but now only cries out of his one eye while he sits rig=
id=20
until a terrible darkness descends on him, when he isn't covered by an awfu=
l=20
tarp.  I have looked online everywhere, but no one seems to agree that the=20
narrator (Mahood, or The Worm) is in fact a genital organ.  Am I the only=20
person in the world who thinks so?  I looked it up in the encyclopedia and=20
they had the biggest BS about it being a metaphysical comedy similar to=20
Dante's Divine Comedy blah blah blah.  Bunk.  They said "Mahood" was the na=
me=20
of a friend of Beckett, but I preferred the elided "Ma[n]hood".  It's a wan=
g. =20
The odd part about it is that everything that happens in the book then make=
s=20
sense and serves a real purpose to the higher level being that the Unnameab=
le=20
doesn't know about - and this makes me think that Beckett is not the negati=
ve=20
writer that I at first thought him to be, since it implies that the=20
absurdities of the first two volumes actually serve a purpose at a higher=20
level of understanding.  Just thought if anybody would have read it and=20
received the same Wolfe-like revelation, they would be on this list.

Marc Aramini

--=20

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