Urth Net
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↰ answers Gerry Quinn
· by quotation
6 quoted lines
Gerry Quinn: What does a purported correspondence between Dorcas and the
Sleeping Beauty tell us, or add to the story? Dorcas was under no enchantment,
Severian did not set out to find her, there was no wall of briars..All I’m saying
is that if you want to make a viable case for fairy tales, you need to do more than
say there is a girl in the story who was dead, which is a bit like being under an
enchanted sleep, and she looked okay, and therefore it’s about the Sleeping Beauty.
Gerry you are inventing straw men to knock down again. Nobody has said Doras is "about" Briar Rose, the Sleeping Beauty. The suggestion was simply and broadly that BotNS has included elements of fairy tales and S & S stories in it. No "briars" are needed to make that assertion.
I can understand an atheist's desire to expose and demystify all of society's delusions regarding faith and myth and superstition. But we are not in the real world here. We are in Gene Wolfe's world.
This is an author who has invoked vampires, dragons, giants, manbeasts, witches, ghosts, monsters, Greek myths, Roman myths, Norse myths, S. American myths, Asian myths, sirens, mermaids, nixies, kelpies, fairies, angels, wizards, knights, ladies in lakes, shape shifting, miraculous healings and resurrections..and,...whew!
It might be easier to make a list of the fairy tale elements in human history Wolfe has NOT invoked (werewolves? heh). But against that massive honking pile of massed fantasy elements we are submitted the argument, "no briars"?
Such derision of fantasy may work in the real world but not against Wolfe. Not in the worlds he has created. Unless you are speaking strictly for yourself. If so then, no problem.