A Cabin on the Coast

Anyone else think that Pirate Freedom can be seen as an expanded version of the Wolfe short story "A Cabin on the Coast"? -- Rostrum

Yes, absolutely. I think one source of their resemblance, and the similarity of other Wolfe stories, is due to Wolfe's absorption of Robert Graves's The White Goddess.

I saw your "Interpreting Wolfe" list on Amazon; I see you put The White Goddess on that too. It's one of those things I've been meaning to read for a while, and learning it's influenced by Wolfe makes me want to read it more. In a similar vein, is there any evidence that Wolfe has read Frazer's Golden Bough (Or at least some of it - The whole work is 13 volumes or something ridiculous like that). Not to sound silly, but do you think you could elaborate just a bit on the Frazer-Wolfe connection in Pirate Freedom? I don't know much about Graves, and there wasn't anything in PF that just screamed "White Goddess" to me, a layman. I suppose I could see some influence in New Sun, but PF, not so much. I don't doubt it's there, it's just I don't know enough to see it. -Matt

I vowed at the time Marc Aramini posted what Wolfe really had to say about The White Goddess that I was going to post a link to that post every time someone raised the specter of The White Goddess and its supposed influence on Wolfe. I can't seem to find it now, so it must be in the year of lost archives. Could you send it again, Marc? -Roy