cant, etc.Whorl

Been lurking awhile. Have read most Wolfe thanks to rave review of SHADOW in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. LONG SUN certainly is full of puzzles/half-baked ideas. Ever since I tried--unsuccessfully--to work out the "timeline" for FREE LIVE FREE, I've been reluctant to work hard at unravelling Wolfe's more obscure plotknots. At first I was disappointed with LONG SUN because it seemed that the writing wasn't anywhere near as tight as the writing in, say, NEW SUN (the original tetralogy). After lurking here I now realize that these puzzles are what makes LONG SUN worth reading. A few miscellaneous items: Palatine (it's not hilly) is an affluent (moreso than Barrington, anyway) northwest Chicago suburb. (Charlie) Trotters is a trendy Chicago restaurant. And from James Joyce's Ulysses (Penguin page 59): "Bus her, wap in rogue's rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell." Unless I find more cant in Ulysses, I probably wont post more soon because I've just started it. It's 933 pages. Maybe I'll reread LONG SUN after that. bee Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com

In message <199702211638.IAA16271 at lists1.best.com>, "Joshua A. Solomon" writes:

Yes, there is subtlety in Long_Sun, though probably of a different kind to the New_Sun. I also loved the cant - Wolfe's a flash cull!

Wolfe's made a few puns on place names, especially Palatine - in Pandora_by_Holly_Hollander, the neighbourhood of Barton (Barrington) is on the far side of Palestine (Palatine) from Chicago - though, as Holly said in that book it isn't where you expect it. (I checked a map of Illinois and saw there was a Palestine - in the south of the state!) Speaking of that book, the ex-investigator Aladdin Blue has a wound that a lot of Wolfe's heros have - a leg wound. Silk of course has a break in his leg, Severian says some call him "Severian the lame" - that seems to be all I can think of. Latro has a wound, but in the head. Most of the characters I named in this paragraph had swords: Silk had the azoth, Severian had Terminus Est and Latro had Falcata. (Alladin Blue doesn't count, unless he had a swordstick!) Someone on rec.arts.sf-written once compared Silk and Severian to Moorcock's Eternal Champion. Derek Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com

See also "The Hero as Werewolf." I asked Gene about the foot wound and possible connection to Genesis 3. He said he had not thought of it in connection with "Werewolf," but I did not ask about Severian (and this was before Silk). I think Silk's foot wound is clearly from Genesis 3; Severian's likely is. I don't think Latro's head wound identifies him with Satan/serpent, though, because it does not fit at all. Also, Gene had hoped to take Latro to Palestine and to the New World before it is all over. I'd love to see what Wolfe would do with Latro visiting Jerusalem! JBJordan Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com