Bloody Hell

David Langford · 04 Jul 1997, 11:26 · from whorl-v0007.mbox · original

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From: ansible at cix.compulink.co.uk (David Langford)
Subject: (whorl) Bloody Hell
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 97 11:26 BST-1
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[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

In-Reply-To: <199707030407.VAA19754 at lists1.best.com>

Peter Cash/Rock wrote:

> David Langford wrote:
> >...Like I suspect many readers, my reaction
> >when we learn that Whorl has arrived at what appears to the
> >same double-planet system as featured in The Fifth Head of Cerberus
> >was one of surprise (I think "bloody hell" was the phrase!)

Actually it was Alastair Reynolds who wrote the quoted lines. My own=20
feeling was that it's just a bit of Wolfe playfulness, a sort of=20
narrative pun (think of the thematic echoes running through the Wolfe=20
Archipelago stories). For one thing, the shapeshifters in Fifth Head=20
appear to be much better at seeming fully human than the inhumi!

You might be amused by this snippet which I just ran in the July issue of=20
Ansible -- though maybe it's well known here:

> GENE WOLFE, some say, does not hold US critic Gregory Feeley in high
> regard as a reviewer. But it must be sheer coincidence that Wolfe's
> _Exodus from the Long Sun_ (constrained by a naming system which calls
> males after animals or animal parts) makes a point of dragging in a
> reference to a proverbially carping, fault-finding critic named
> Feeler....

(References: cast list and Chapter 6 of Exodus.) Just to make it perfect,=20
carp do of course have these little barbels or feelers on their jaws.

For fairness I should add that Greg Feeley's reviews of my own stuff have=20
been very kind....

Dave

David Langford
ansible at cix.co.uk

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