feets

Alice Turner · 03 Apr 1997, 18:52 · from whorl-v0004.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <al at interport.net>
Subject: (whorl) feets
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 18:52:27
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[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Re Nutria's excellent post:

Yes! Time to analyze enlightenments and mythic linkages.

I wouldn't pin the lame foot on Claudius alone. There is a long, long
Western tradition of the symbolic wounded foot/wounded thigh. Think about
the Fisher King. Or one-sandaled Jason. Or Sevarian! The wound seems nearly
always to refer to impotence, and the monarch who bears it is symbolic of
the wounded land; to heal it/him (as some of the Arthurian knights
attempted to do in their travels) is to heal sterility/barrenness. His
leg's new wholeness is quite explicitly a symbolic healing with Sevarian,
who is clearly, by the end, a mythic figure. And, as Silk becomes more and
more the designated Savior, his lameness stands in for the dysfunctional
Whorl. Wolfe's having had polio as a child has got to have made him
super-aware of the tradition. I wonder how it will figure in the new
books---or do you think Wolfe will abandon Silk in favor of a new
generation? Oh no!=20

Nutria, could you track down a root for Chrasmology? I'm sure you're right,
though.

-alga-

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