(urth) Sleeping Baldanders

Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 30 07:38:39 PST 2008


Severian as (less self-conscious) Ahab?



----- Original Message ----
From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 9:28:08 AM
Subject: Re: (urth) Sleeping Baldanders

I have always linked these 2 scenes in my mind, but never knew what to make of it .... Homage, perhaps.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:00:41 -0600
From: "Matthew Groves" <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Sleeping Baldanders
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
    <39ed084f0812291800j7ae2f9fetd825faf2bcd78293 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

This scene reminds me of Moby Dick, where Ishmael has to sleep next to
Queequeg at the inn.  Looking back at Moby Dick, I feel sure Wolfe is
referring to Melville here.  Melville makes reference several times to a
counterpane in Chs. 3 and 4, and Severian writes that before going to bed,
"I took of my cloak and spread it on the worn counterpane."

I think the bit about striking off is a bit of picaresque humor in the vane
of, say, Moby Dick, but it is a mystery to me what Baldanders means about
"Never," unless they have something to do with the spooky dreams he reports
having had.



---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 081230-0, 12/30/2008
Tested on: 12/30/2008 10:28:09 AM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com



_______________________________________________
Urth Mailing List
To post, write urth at urth.net
Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net



      



More information about the Urth mailing list