Wolves — Urth Net

Andrew Mason11 Apr 2014, 13:50as archived

Wolves

Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out. In some cases, of course, the wolves are quite open, while in others they are hidden. Cerberus has an open Wolf (the name of the Shadow Child when just one is left) and, by general agreement, a hidden Wolfe. New Sun has the story of the boy called Frog, brought up by wolves. Soldier has a known werewolf, and possibly hidden ones as well. The Sorcerer's House also has a known werewolf. _The Wizard Knight _ has nothing explicit so far as I can see. Could Able's miraculous dog really be a wolf? In Long Sun I think I may have found one. Captain Serval (Hyacinth's ex-lover/estranged husband, depending who you believe) is named, I think, only once in the main text - we know his name mostly from the glossaries - and is generally called just 'the captain'. Now, the serval is actually a feline animal, but its name derives from 'lobo cerval', meaning 'deer-like wolf'. Strikingly, he has a round chin and a moustache. I have not found any in Short Sun, but I will keep on looking. Has anyone found any others?

Piotr Szczęsny11 Apr 2014, 14:14as archived

↳ in reply to Andrew Mason

Also in The Land across we have open wolves - a pack in the forest if I remember correctly. 11 kwi 2014 15:50 "Andrew Mason" <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> napisa?(a):

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Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out. In some cases, of course, the wolves are quite open, while in others they are hidden. Cerberus has an open Wolf (the name of the Shadow Child when just one is left) and, by general agreement, a hidden Wolfe. New Sun has the story of the boy called Frog, brought up by wolves. Soldier has a known werewolf, and possibly hidden ones as well. The Sorcerer's House also has a known werewolf. _The Wizard Knight _ has nothing explicit so far as I can see. Could Able's miraculous dog really be a wolf? In Long Sun I think I may have found one. Captain Serval (Hyacinth's ex-lover/estranged husband, depending who you believe) is named, I think, only once in the main text - we know his name mostly from the glossaries - and is generally called just 'the captain'. Now, the serval is actually a feline animal, but its name derives from 'lobo cerval', meaning 'deer-like wolf'. Strikingly, he has a round chin and a moustache. I have not found any in Short Sun, but I will keep on looking. Has anyone found any others? _______________________________________________

Antonin Scriabin11 Apr 2014, 14:20as archived

↳ in reply to Andrew Mason

Let's see ... Rex von Madadh in *Castleview *is a werewolf. There is also a werewolf (Lupine) in *The Sorcerer's House. *Those are the two I can think of off the top of my head. On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 9:50 AM, Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com

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wrote:

Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out. In some cases, of course, the wolves are quite open, while in others they are hidden. Cerberus has an open Wolf (the name of the Shadow Child when just one is left) and, by general agreement, a hidden Wolfe. New Sun has the story of the boy called Frog, brought up by wolves. Soldier has a known werewolf, and possibly hidden ones as well. The Sorcerer's House also has a known werewolf. _The Wizard Knight _ has nothing explicit so far as I can see. Could Able's miraculous dog really be a wolf? In Long Sun I think I may have found one. Captain Serval (Hyacinth's ex-lover/estranged husband, depending who you believe) is named, I think, only once in the main text - we know his name mostly from the glossaries - and is generally called just 'the captain'. Now, the serval is actually a feline animal, but its name derives from 'lobo cerval', meaning 'deer-like wolf'. Strikingly, he has a round chin and a moustache. I have not found any in Short Sun, but I will keep on looking. Has anyone found any others? _______________________________________________

Marc Aramini11 Apr 2014, 14:49as archived

↳ in reply to Andrew Mason

Well "each" is such a all inclusive term. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they aren't. I think a more apt rationale for this is he is obsessed with names, representations, symbols... There is an essay in castle of days where he goes on about what several famous writers' names mean. With such an obvious authorial symbol and a symbolist writer they creep in, but they aren't in everything. I think the first time I noticed it in my survey of the short fiction was the howling in the background of "the mountains like mice" but as I said it isn't in every story. The long sun naming scheme is certainly influenced by the fact that he is named after an animal and his wife Rosemary a plant/seasoning Sent from my iPhone

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On Apr 11, 2014, at 6:50 AM, Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> wrote: Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out. In some cases, of course, the wolves are quite open, while in others they are hidden. Cerberus has an open Wolf (the name of the Shadow Child when just one is left) and, by general agreement, a hidden Wolfe. New Sun has the story of the boy called Frog, brought up by wolves. Soldier has a known werewolf, and possibly hidden ones as well. The Sorcerer's House also has a known werewolf. _The Wizard Knight _ has nothing explicit so far as I can see. Could Able's miraculous dog really be a wolf? In Long Sun I think I may have found one. Captain Serval (Hyacinth's ex-lover/estranged husband, depending who you believe) is named, I think, only once in the main text - we know his name mostly from the glossaries - and is generally called just 'the captain'. Now, the serval is actually a feline animal, but its name derives from 'lobo cerval', meaning 'deer-like wolf'. Strikingly, he has a round chin and a moustache. I have not found any in Short Sun, but I will keep on looking. Has anyone found any others? _______________________________________________

Jeff Wilson11 Apr 2014, 15:43as archived

↳ in reply to Andrew Mason

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On Fri, April 11, 2014 08:50, Andrew Mason wrote: Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out.

IIRC, he stated more strongly in the old GEnie days, that his first step in solving the mysteries of a Wolfe story is to find the figurative if not literal Gene Wolfe in the story. This certainly worked for 5HC, though I didn't particularly think the alzabo passed muster as a "gene wolf" in the sense Neil nominated it (it eats the family member by member) but as genetically tampered furry pack predator (its pack is on the inside), sure.

Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com > A&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab < http://www.tamut.edu/cil >

Andrew Mason07 Jul 2014, 20:28as archived

↳ follows Jeff Wilson · by subject

Continuing this discussion from a while ago: I have just been reading An Evil Guest, and that contains one explicit werewolf, perhaps with suggestions that there are also hidden ones. Also - I thought I had posted this before, but I can't find it in the archive, so will repeat it: Marc's recent post on Peace showed that there are wolves in that, in 'The Stag at Bay'. So, we have wolves in: Cerberus Peace New Sun Castleview Soldier Long Sun (perhaps) The Wizard Knight (perhaps) An Evil Guest The Sorcerer's House The Land Across. I think it's likely that they are indeed everywhere, though I'm still worried about where they can be in Short Sun. They do seem to be becoming more obvious in recent works, though. Is Wolfe putting them in to fulfil Gaiman's prediction? Or is he making them more blatant to save us the time and trouble spent in searching for the hidden wolf?

Marc Aramini07 Jul 2014, 21:57as archived

↳ in reply to Andrew Mason

I mean this really depends how tangential and desparate you want to get. Like Silhouette, which I am almost finished writing up, clearly has no wolves, as there are no animals on the space ship, but johann, our protagonist, is called "betrothed of fortune" by another character (and the name Faust means fortunate or lucky) ... So the wolf in that story is johann Wolfgang goethe ... But really ... ... No wolves for all reasonable intents and purposes

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On Monday, July 7, 2014, Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> wrote: Continuing this discussion from a while ago: I have just been reading An Evil Guest, and that contains one explicit werewolf, perhaps with suggestions that there are also hidden ones. Also - I thought I had posted this before, but I can't find it in the archive, so will repeat it: Marc's recent post on Peace showed that there are wolves in that, in 'The Stag at Bay'. So, we have wolves in: Cerberus Peace New Sun Castleview Soldier Long Sun (perhaps) The Wizard Knight (perhaps) An Evil Guest The Sorcerer's House The Land Across. I think it's likely that they are indeed everywhere, though I'm still worried about where they can be in Short Sun. They do seem to be becoming more obvious in recent works, though. Is Wolfe putting them in to fulfil Gaiman's prediction? Or is he making them more blatant to save us the time and trouble spent in searching for the hidden wolf?