(urth) Prior Race On Blue And Green
"Fernando Q. Gouvêa"
fqgouvea at colby.edu
Mon Dec 17 09:33:55 PST 2007
Matthew Groves wrote:
> Why doesn't Wolfe answer these sorts of questions? I suspect one
> reason is that even his most straightforward response will be taken as
> evidence of some still less plausible hypothesis. But I believe the
> main reason is that these are not *pertinent* questions. By this I
> mean that you can posit that Urth/Lune = Ste. Anne/Ste. Croix =
> Blue/Green = Urth/Venus without changing what these novels mean. This
> answer doesn't do any interpretive work. So Urth/Venus can be
> Blue/Green if you want, but then much like the Whorl, you haven't
> really gone anywhere yet.
Hear hear!
Furthermore, the processes of creativity are complicated, and not all
conscious. It's easy for readers to see recurring themes, settings, and
motifs. In Wolfe, my list would include double planets, sacrificing for
the love of a woman, men that are unusually strong, missing or unknown
parents, the difficulty of being good and the temptation to justify
one's actions as "unavoidable". Are they put in deliberately? I'm not
sure even Wolfe knows.
Fernando
--
=============================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea
Carter Professor of Mathematics
Colby College Editor, FOCUS
5836 Mayflower Hill Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901 http://mathdl.maa.org
http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea
Between the ages of seven and 12, I did nothing but study origami... and
for what? Four years ago, in a Belgian bar, I folded Adolfo Cerceda's
exquisite Peacock from a ten-dollar bill for a beautiful girl from Kiev.
I recall Roger Harbin's marginal comment on this model in Secrets of
Origami -- 'Now wait for the oohs and aahs' -- which, being all I have
ever desired from an audience, made the palms of my hands ache when I
first read it. Anyway, the girl reacted appropriately, I guess; she
widened her eyes, she made a little O of surprise; then she flattened
the note out and bought two beers. I still don't get it. I can look
forward to underwhelming my grandchildren on my deathbed.
-- Don Paterson, in The Blind Eye: A Book of Late Advice:
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