gene wolfe's parents

Tony Ellis · 07 Dec 2004, 11:22 · from 2004-December.txt.gz

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From: tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com (Tony Ellis)
Date: Tue Dec  7 11:22:49 2004
Subject: (urth) gene wolfe's parents
In-Reply-To: <20041207064659.B14A737CF1 at sitemail.everyone.net>
Message-ID: <000201c4dc92$21066660$6501a8c0@NAME>

Turin wrote
> did gene wolfe lose his parents at an early age.  on his blog 
> william gibson writes
> 
> 
> Gene Wolfe once said that being an only child whose parents 
> are dead is like being the sole survivor of drowned Atlantis. 
> There was a whole civilization there, an entire continent, 
> but it's gone. And you alone remember.

<snip>

> Does anyone know where this is form or who he is talking 
> about? 

In the essay 'Where I get my ideas from' collected in Castle of the
Otter, Wolfe writes (movingly, for me):

The horrible thing has happened. Father and Mother are dead... Where is
the little house where Boots stretched before the gas fire, where Mother
sat crocheting... Where is lost Atlantis? Lost in the dust. And only I
am left to tell you.

It sounds as if Gibson was thinking of this - although Wolfe might have
used the same image elsewhere.

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