Urth Net
Cim & Mr. Million go Shopping
↰ answers Jim Jordan
· by quotation
5 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
Mantis writes:
How'bout Cim as "firefly"? "Glowing?" Check! "Star-like?"
Check! "Softer than thunder?" Check!
Random Latin: cimex (a bug).
I cede the point: lightning bug it is!
1 quoted line
In French, saltimbanque means "charlatan." Sorry for saying "counterfeiter," though that's close. Given the hell associations, the 666, the whorehouse, and the generally evil experiments of Mr. Million, I'd say "Satan as charlatan" was clearly in Wolfe's mind. Not that the story is an allegory, or something. But the last line of the original novella is a chiller if this line of clones is really an "antichrist"!
Whop! It just hit me what you're talking about...Mr. Million is an ancestor of the line, isn't he? Some kind of personality imprint of great-grandpaw, right? Hmmm....Million=Legion, maybe?
I do remember this line from the young man's father...something about how "we never rise any higher", implying that the devil is stuck in a kind of mediocrity. The whole point of the cloning experiments is for the devil to transcend his limitations, I guess. But it doesn't work--the devil is just naturally mediocre. There's something of C.S. Lewis in that; I think old Clive would like it.
Sgt. Rock