Digest whorl.v010.n066

David Langford · 15 Jan 2000, 14:11 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: ansible at cix.co.uk (David Langford)
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n066
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 14:11 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0214 at digest.urth.net>
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Josh Levitan wrote ...

[snippage]

> I have a feeling that Wolfe's given us enough info to figure out what=20
> the secret is currently.  It reminds me of that Borges story, "The=20
> Mystery of The Phoenix(?)" (something like that) in Ficciones, where he=20
> talks around the secret rite of the cult of the Phoenix and supposedly=20
> gives enough info to figure out what the rite is (although I've always=20
> been too dense to figure it out).

Where does it say that Borges gives enough information? My reading of "The=20
Sect of the Phoenix" (also translated as "The Cult of the Phoenix") is=20
that it's a joke, practically a shaggy dog story, deliberately blurred by=20
anti-information. Drop the teasing physical details about "the cork and=20
the slime", or push them sideways into metaphor, and ...

[Does Borges need spoiler space on this list? Oh well:]

... it does seem very much as though the Mystery Rite, which is despised,=20
trivial, not talked about, abstained from by the very virtuous, yet=20
somehow never dies out and may indeed have become instinctive, is=20
ordinary human sexual intercourse.

Dave

David Langford
ansible at cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/

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