Borski's Labyrinth

Nigel Price · 27 Jan 2005, 05:19 · from 2005-January.txt.gz

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From: nigel.aprice at virgin.net (Nigel Price)
Date: Thu Jan 27 05:19:36 2005
Subject: (urth) Borski's Labyrinth
In-Reply-To: <20050126192948.9A65198880 at che.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <NIBBJLHJDCMBDLKLILDICEIGDEAA.nigel.aprice at virgin.net>

Turin asked:

>>has anyone read robert borski's solar labyrinth
>>on the book o fthe new sun.

Yes, I've got a copy. It's beautifully written and very witty, in an erudite
way, and I read it with a great deal of pleasure. Robert's methodology is,
as ever, based in large measure on imaginitive extrapolation and inspired
theorising and I would issue a huge health warning about most if not all of
his conclusions. For example, his ideas about Wolfe's alleged scheme for
making the names of related characters partial anagrams of each other is
obviously true in some cases, but he has to apply truly Procrustean logic to
make it work in others.

On the other hand, Robert has a brilliant eye for details and for spotting
recurring words, images and themes in Wolfe's text. There were plenty of
occasions when I started off with my usual scepticism and an attitude of "Oh
come on Robert, this is far-fetched nonsense!", only to be brought up short
by his quotations from the actual text. Having examined these, I was often
forced to recognise that he really was onto something, even its significance
was not necessarily that which he ascribed to it. I don't share Robert's
assumption that every mystery within TBotNS has a precise solution, but it
was good fun re-examining the text in his company.

Nigel Price

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