(urth) Elementary
Jeff Wilson
jwilson at io.com
Fri Aug 26 23:06:16 PDT 2005
Chris wrote:
> Does this take that much agonizing? The fact that Gene Wolfe is popular
> now is irrelevant, unless you're claiming that somehow Wolfe somehow
> should have known back then that he would be as popular an author as
> Vinge. Even if you assume he made that presumption, when you think about
> it it would be a relative miracle for a book by Vinge or Wolfe to have
> survived and made its way into a library on a planet circling another star.
It's a BIG library as described, and the locals could not hope to have
produced enough writings of note in their debased state of
civilizational devolution.
Given the political history also described, wholesale re-printing of
English-language books from Earth could be a conscious culture war
stratagem. The authorities depicted as never throwing anything written
away, though they are fairly indifferent about keeping it up.
Some or all of the above may be a reflection of GW's experiences with
his alma mater, complete with autocratic unformed authoritarians,
neoclassical buildings plopped down in the middle of the wilderness to
establish Anglophone civilization where former continental colonies had
been, libraries crammed with books but relatively little care given
them, even the lengthy evening sunlight during the play is to be found
there. Oh, and the vivisection as well, lest we forget.
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
More information about the Urth
mailing list