SS Stuff on a Monday

Adam Stephanides · 12 Apr 2001, 11:43 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) SS Stuff on a Monday
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:43:34
Message-ID: <whorl-v0012-0593 at digest.urth.net>
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on 4/9/01 11:20 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:

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

I like this, though I don't know if Wolfe intended it.  But surely Purgatory
would be the Whorl _and_ Blue, with the conversation with Remora
corresponding to the final purging of Dante's sins; and the undepicted
voyage to the stars would be the Paradiso.  That would make either Seawrack
or Nettle Beatrice; either would fit.  But who is Virgil, then?  Since
Virgil left Dante at the end of the Purgatorio, the logical candidate would
be Horn's spirit, which (as I've argued before) leaves Silk's body around
this time; which would mean that it is Silk who corresponds to Dante.  But
Silk wasn't on Green, except in astral form, and that came after the Whorl,
so this doesn't fit.

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

This, otoh, I don't see.  There's no significant difference in forms of
governance between the city-states of IGJ and those of RttW, as far as I
remember; if anything, Blanko is better governed than either Dorp or New
Viron.  And anyway, Dante liked theo-monarchies.

--Adam

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