cant, etc.

Derek Bell · 21 Feb 1997, 20:07 · from whorl-v0003.mbox · original

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: (whorl) cant, etc.
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 20:07:45 +0000
Message-ID: <whorl-v0003-0164 at digest.urth.net>
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[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

In message <199702211638.IAA16271 at lists1.best.com>, "Joshua A. Solomon" wri=
tes:
>	At first I was disappointed with LONG SUN because it seemed that
>the writing wasn't anywhere near as tight as the writing in, say,=20
>NEW SUN (the original tetralogy). After lurking here I now realize
>that these puzzles are what makes LONG SUN worth reading.

	Yes, there is subtlety in _Long_Sun_, though probably of a
different kind to the _New_Sun_. I also loved the cant - Wolfe's a
flash cull!

>A few miscellaneous items:
>Palatine (it's not hilly) is an affluent (moreso than
>Barrington, anyway) northwest Chicago suburb.

	Wolfe's made a few puns on place names, especially Palatine -
in _Pandora_by_Holly_Hollander_, the neighbourhood of Barton
(Barrington) is on the far side of Palestine (Palatine) from Chicago
- though, as Holly said in that book it isn't where you expect it. (I
checked a map of Illinois and saw there was a Palestine - in the south
of the state!)

	Speaking of that book, the ex-investigator Aladdin Blue has a
wound that a lot of Wolfe's heros have - a leg wound. Silk of course
has a break in his leg, Severian says some call him "Severian the
lame" - that seems to be all I can think of. Latro has a wound, but in
the head. Most of the characters I named in this paragraph had swords:
Silk had the azoth, Severian had Terminus Est and Latro had Falcata.
(Alladin Blue doesn't count, unless he had a swordstick!) Someone on
rec.arts.sf-written once compared Silk and Severian to Moorcock's
Eternal Champion.

	Derek


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