(no subject)

I am pretty sure some of the (published) difficulty Wolfe had with his older son is reflected in the fictional difficulty Horn has with his oldest son, Sinew, and his monstrous surrogate son, Krait.

Yes, certainly Short Sun has that autobiographical synchronicity ... the difficulties with one in particular were quite pronounced, though I do not think it was his oldest son. In How I Got 3 Zip Codes I felt the background bio information was worth it since it is basically Gene on the post office (or the real story behind Car Sinister)... but I am not certain the Korean war influence on New Sun or Wolfe's parental struggles on Horn and his family are the type of exegesis I am interested in, as Wolfe seems particularly against the excavations of the biographer... perhaps when enough time has passed, when the things like the disintegration of the relationship between melville and Hawthorne can be speculated upon without injury to either, I would feel more comfortable exploring stuff like that as pertinent to the literature ...