Betel & Quetzal

Ranjit Bhatnagar · 15 Apr 1997, 01:05 · from whorl-v0004.mbox · original

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From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: (whorl) Betel & Quetzal
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 01:05:35
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[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Why is the extremely minor (?) character Maytera Betel
always carefully described as dark and sleepy-eyed?  It's
bothering me.  Sounds dangerously like a deliberate clue,
like Tussah's coarse skin.  I can't think of any other
sleepy-eyed characters, but Poppy of the yellow house is
dark, and named, like Betel, for a narcotic plant.  Could
Betel have reenacted Rose's shame more recently, and do we
care?

By the way, there seem to be two different, unrelated plants
called betel, both of which are narcotic.

Also, I don't remember anyone commenting on the passage in
III, p17, in which Quetzal removes a powder puff from a
drawer across the room, without leaving his chair.  So does
he have a chair with wheels, or telekinesis, that's what I
want to know.

I just watched Disney's _Jungle Book,_ and now Quetzal makes
me think of a cross between Disney's serpent Kaa and the
Simpsons' Montgomery Burns (as playing a vampire in the
Halloween special).

	r.

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