SS Stuff on a Monday

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 09 Apr 2001, 09:20 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: (whorl) SS Stuff on a Monday
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 09:20:18
Message-ID: <whorl-v0012-0553 at digest.urth.net>
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Michael, no, your theory, attractive though it is (I love the idea of
embarassing vampires to death...), simply doesn't fit with many of the=20
Narr's statements about the nature of the SotI. While pricking them in
the vanity might do any number of things to the Inhumi, causing them=20
to become mindless leechagators is just _not_ a likely result.

Okay, now as to the utopia thing. There definitely does seem to be an
aspect of that in SS. Some aspects worth considering:

1) It's clearly a form of the Hero's Journey.=20

2) If Wolfe is going to write a Utopia, it will be a Christian utopia
   -- which is almost a contradiction in terms, given the Christian
   belief that "this world" is radically Fallen and no true utopia is
   possible short of Heaven. But and counterweighting this we need
   also to remember that the word "utopia" comes from the Catholic=20
   St. Sir Thomas More, and did not, in his hands, mean a "perfect"
   state so much as an optimal one.=20

3) It's also in dialogue with several other things besides KSR's Mars
   books (which I haven't read, btw: are they really worth the effort?).

   a) Another three-volume hero's journey: Dante. Nell mezzo del camino=20
      de whatever Horn finds himself all at sea (so to speak), lost. His=20
      journeys lead him through Hell (Green), Purgatory (the Whorl), and=20
      ultimately to, uh, well, that's where it gets kind of complicated...

      But there's also a political Commedia here, as the Narrator=20
      journeys through hell (the theo-monarchies of OBW), purgatory (the=20
      Italianate city-states of IGJ), and paradise (the democracy of Dorp=20
      and the jolly quasi-anarchy of NV), only political "paradise" ain't=20
      no paradise anyway, which leads me to point b.

   b) Another well-known SF political "utopian" novel featuring twin=20
      worlds, where the Hero's Journey leads him to realize that political=20
      utopia ain't going to happen? I refer, of course, to Le Guin's THE=20
      DISPOSSESSED. (Btw, if we take it that this dialog is intended-- and=20
      I think a strong case can be made for this -- then there is also an=20
      implicit  dialog with Delany's [TROUBLE ON] TRITON.)=20

   c) And, of course, it is in dialog with (and implicitly critiques, if=20
      only by differentiae) the LONG and NEW SUN books.

I think I'll go take my medication now.

--Blattid

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