(urth) _Dhalgren_: Scathing Towards Women? and a few ?'s about Sev

[James Crossley]

On 10/23/06 9:44 AM, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Was the power specific to Sev as the Conciliator,
>> or just general divine (or Hierogrammatic, if you
>> want to be SFnal) power accessible to any old
>> body?
> 
> Have you read _Urth of the New Sun_? It defines rather
> clearly where the power actually came from.


Dan'l's question reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask the list
at large--who, if anyone, besides me finds BotNS more satisfying without the
fifth volume? I prefer the suggestiveness of not knowing all the
explanations provided in _Urth_, and judging by Wolfe's accounts of how he
came to write that last piece, it seems he would have been content to let
the tetralogy stand alone.  I think it's only the perceived demands of the
genre audience that brought _Urth_ into existence; the publishers of
literary fiction are more generally tolerant of open-ended conclusions.
Thoughts?

Delurking,
James