(urth) Change of Topic: Latro
brunians at brunians.org
brunians at brunians.org
Tue Nov 4 06:41:10 PST 2008
He was home for a while off-stage, between volume two and volume three.
He forgets.
.
> Actually, I don't think Latro will ever get home until he passes through
> India, Micronesia, Columbia, Ireland, Britain, Germania, and Slavakia. I
> asked Wolfe once if he anticipated a wrap-up to the series and he said no.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: PMorris33 at aol.com
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 7:56 PM
> Subject: (urth) Change of Topic: Latro
>
>
> Does anyone know if a fourth book in the Soldier series is being
> contemplated? After all, Latro has not been returned to his home.
>
> In a message dated 11/3/2008 5:09:14 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
> urth-request at lists.urth.net writes:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian? (Bryan Alexander)
> 2. Stingray (Nigel Price)
> 3. Stingray (Nigel Price)
> 4. Re: Stingray (James Wynn)
> 5. AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian? (Nigel Price)
> 6. Stingray (Nigel Price)
> 7. Re: Stingray (Matthew Keeley)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 17:10:48 -0500
> From: "Bryan Alexander" <bryan.alexander at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian?
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID:
> <a55c3dff0811031410h6cd912e8t9690b7f7b5bd81ba at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I admit to bringing a Lovecraftian perspective to my reading of AEG.
> That
> was due in part to various things I'd heard about the novel, which
> were then
> brought to mind with the HPL inscription. So I suspected far more
> cosmic
> horror from various quarters, including the flapping creature, than I
> ended
> up with.
> My Phil Dick-style expectations were confirmed instead.
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Kieran Mullen wrote:
> >
> >> That needs a bit of explanation. For a work to be Lovecraftian I
> don't
> >> think it is simply sufficient to stick in Hastur and Cthulu and
> call it
> >> that. Lovecraft (IMO) came up with a truly original ontological
> horror
> >> premise for his fiction: the universe is dominated by inhuman
> forces which
> >> we don't have a hope of understanding or defeating. At best we
> can only
> >> hope that they ignore us. (We can't even pray that they do -
> there is no
> >> God, only atoms and a void). Humanity is a minor irrelevance in
> a dark
> >> and hungry universe. Any attempt to try to change that will only
> draw the
> >> attention of forces that will destroy the inquirer.
> >>
> >>
> > Given that Wolfe is a Christian I doubt very much that he would
> write a
> > work consistent with such a nihilistic Lovecraftian premise. But
> other
> > writers, such as August Derleth (also a Christian), have expanded
> the
> > Lovecraft universe to include a more classical view of good vs.
> evil. To me,
> > true horror cannot exist in a universe where our ideas of sanity and
> > goodness are a mere fluke, a cosmic joke. The efforts of the
> protagonists
> > become simply silly.
> >
> > But I don't think the Lovecraft parts are simply tacked on. From the
> > beginning Reis announced his intention to retire to the South Seas
> (p. 14).
> > This cannot be a coincidence. Reis may have learned something during
> his
> > time as ambassador to Woldercan. He may have realized there was a
> connected
> > menace on Earth and determined to fight it. To some degree his
> provoking a
> > fight between Squiddy and the Navy seems to have been a success. At
> the very
> > least the storms took out many Cthulhu worshipers on the neighboring
> > islands.
> >
> > Even Lovecraft allowed the forces of good to succeed sometimes, for
> example
> > in "The Dunwich Horror." Even he could not help rooting for humanity
> against
> > the monsters.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Urth Mailing List
> > To post, write urth at urth.net
> > Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Bryan Alexander
> http://infocult.typepad.com/
> http://twitter.com/BryanAlexander
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 22:33:59 -0000
> From: "Nigel Price" <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Subject: (urth) Stingray
> To: "Urth List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNGEEMDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> As I was writing about evil undersea cities and civilisations in AEG
> and the
> Urth Cycle, one part of my mind facetiously wandered and wondered
> whether
> Gene Wolfe had ever watched the Gerry Anderson puppet show "Stingray"
> in the
> 1960s. As I thought whimsically about it, the parallels scattered
> through
> his books became stronger and stranger. Was Seawrack inspired by
> Marina? Was
> the idea of the US Navy attacking the Storm God inspired by the sight
> of
> Troy Tempest and the WASPs attacking Titan and his aquaphibian
> minions?
>
> No, of course not, it's a silly idea. It's not as if Wolfe ever refers
> to
> puppetry in his stories.
>
> Hang on there, wait a minute...
>
> What about that dream Severian has of the toy theatre and the
> marionette
> versions of himself and Baldander?
>
> Goodness! If I'm right, anything can happen in the next half hour...
>
> Nigel (in a playful mood)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 23:00:41 -0000
> From: "Nigel Price" <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Subject: (urth) Stingray
> To: "Urth List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNOEEMDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Weird but true: Gerry Anderson and Ray Harryhausen were both speakers
> at the
> 1987 WorldCon in Brighton, England, which Gene and Rosemary Wolfe also
> attended.
>
> Did Wolfe hear Gerry Anderson talk about his work?
>
> Then again, for anyone interested in creating submarine squid deities,
> Harryhausen's amusing account of animating the six-limbed giant
> octopus in
> "It came from beneath the sea" might well have been inspirational.
> (The
> octopus only had six limbs because Harryhausen was on a tight budget
> and an
> even tighter timetable. Animating extra limbs takes time, and time is
> money!)
>
> Nigel (who is trying to write a serious analysis of AEG - coming soon
> - but
> keeps getting distracted by whimsical notions)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 17:57:00 -0600
> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Stingray
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <8349DBE9E74F4391A5D742992EE9395D at GATEWAY>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> > No, of course not, it's a silly idea. It's not as if Wolfe ever
> refers to
> > puppetry in his stories.
>
> In The Book of the Short Sun, Horn remembers the following from his
> childhood:
>
> "I once had a toy, a little wooden man in a blue coat who was moved by
> strings. When I played with him, I made him walk and bow, and spoke
> for him.
> I practiced until I thought myself very clever. One day I saw my
> mother
> holding the two sticks that held his strings, and my little wooden man
> saluting my youngest sister much more cleverly than I could have made
> him do
> it, and laughing with his head thrown back, then mourning with his
> face in
> his hands. I never spoke of it to my mother, but I was angry and
> ashamed."
> On Blue's Waters, pg. 158
>
> Soon he after he was assaulted by the triple-jawed leatherskin---an
> obvious
> reference to Pinnochio's Dog-fish.
>
> J.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:04:01 -0000
> From: "Nigel Price" <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Subject: (urth) AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian?
> To: "Urth List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNCEENDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Kieran Mullen asks...
>
> >>So what do you think? Is AEG just a romp
> >>through different genres or is it really meant
> >>to be a horror novel?
>
> No, I don't think that AEG is a Lovecraftian horror story in the sense
> that
> you define. As far as I understand - which is not very far at all - it
> borrows some Lovecraftian elements, but does not share their
> underlying
> philosophy, their "ontological horror premise" (great phrase!).
>
> I've read back through all the posts here on AEG and I've reread bits
> of the
> story but I still don't really understand how all the parts of the
> book fit
> together. I'm trying to work it out. The nature of Gideon Chase seems
> to be
> key. That in turn, because Gideon was born there and is probably a
> human-Woldercanese hybrid, is tied up with the moral status of the
> planet
> Woldercan.
>
> Wolfe depicts Woldercan as a place which has talking fish, dangerous
> forests, alchemy and different physics. The inhabitants superficially
> resemble humans but are subtly different. They can breed successfully
> with
> lower animals, including humans, and male Woldercaners try to seduce
> and
> mate with human females. All in all, Woldercan sounds more like
> Fairyland
> than a conventional science fiction alien planet. If it is a sort of
> SF
> Fairyland, that would make the Wolders fairies, or fairy analogues
> anyway.
>
> The moral status of fairies and Fairyland is moot in the European
> tradition.
> Sometimes they are morally equivalent to humans, with the "good" and
> "bad"
> fairies familiar in children's stories. Often, though, they are
> depicted as
> being amoral and "other", outside human schemes of morality and, when
> their
> stories get merged with the Christian tradition, outside the divine
> scheme
> of salvation.
>
> Yet another tradition, evident in stories like that of Tam Lin and
> some
> versions of Thomas the Rhymer, has Fairyland as a subsidiary dominion
> of
> Hell to which it pays tax (usually every seven years) in the form of
> human
> souls. Fairies in this tradition become similar to devils or demons.
>
> In the opening chapter of AEG, Gideon tells the President that there
> is no
> such thing as good and evil. His position seems to be that there is no
> such
> thing as absolute good or evil, only things that we ourselves
> disapprove of.
> If he means that no person is ever wholly good or wholly evil, he must
> surely be right. If he means that good and evil do not themselves
> exist,
> then, from Wolfe's perspective as a Christian, he must surely be
> wrong. He
> seems to mean both, which is confusing!
>
> Gideon's perspective is either that of an amoral alien, analogous to
> the
> amoral fairies I described above, with no human sense of good or evil,
> or he
> himself is evil and is deceiving others with his untruths, which makes
> him
> more of the "demonic" type of alien/fairy.
>
> Wolfe has stated in interviews that his starting point for AEG was the
> idea
> of a detective who was a wizard. Gideon is a wizard, and certainly the
> archetypal wizard, Merlin, is half-human and half-devil in some
> accounts of
> his parentage.
>
> By this account, Gideon is at best amoral and at worst positively
> evil.
>
> At the start of AEG, the President of the United States attempts to
> recruit
> Gideon to work with the FBI in catching Bill Reis. In many stories,
> certainly in the 1930s pulp stories which Wolfe is pastiching, this
> would
> make Gideon the good guy, an untouchable science fictional Eliot Ness.
> But
> there's a strong element of satire in AEG. The USA over which the
> President
> presides is a place where abortion has become legalised child murder,
> and
> where the various federal agencies fight an endless turf war against
> each
> other, possibly under the manipulative influence of demonic submarine
> aliens. The moral status of the President in this story is pretty
> cloudy,
> especially as we later come to see that Bill Reis himself may be far
> from
> being the evildoer the President claims. As the President's agent,
> Gideon's
> moral status is equally suspect.
>
> That's at the start of the story. Does Gideon change?
>
> I'm not clear in my own mind whether Bill Reis starts off bad but is
> changed
> by the transforming power of his love for Cassie, or whether he was
> always
> good and it just takes Cassie and the reader a long time to find the
> correct
> moral orientation within the confusing landscapes of AEG. I think that
> there's at least an element of the former because Bill Reis learned
> his
> alchemy and other tricks on the morally dubious Woldercan.
>
> Either way, Gideon's transforms Cassie into a star (her name, after
> all, is
> that of an astronomical star) and its her loveliness which captures
> both
> Gideon and Bill Reis' hearts. Somehow, this love helps to orientate
> all
> three of them. Cassie chooses to marry Bill and Gideon goes to work
> for him,
> although he doesn't seem to break his agreement with the President so
> much
> as suspend it.
>
> That seems to be one half of the story. Bill is inspired to
> self-sacrifice,
> Cassie loves the Christ-like Bill and Gideon is working, at least for
> the
> moment, for the good guys. Gideon may have transformed Cassie into a
> star in
> order to trap Reis, but the her power of beauty has transformed all
> three of
> them for the better.
>
> But the other half of the story seems to involve putting the bad guys
> into a
> properly inverted hierarchy of wickedness.
>
> Cassie's story of how she came to love the neighbour's dog is
> instructive in
> this context. Scared of the neighbour's dog but even more scared of
> her
> violently abusive father, she finds herself sheltering with the animal
> and
> accepting its protection. Her clear perception of the greater source
> of
> danger enables her to accept the dog just as she later accepts the
> help of
> the bat creatures which would otherwise have terrified her in order to
> escape the agents of the evil Storm God.
>
> The US Navy act as agents of the bad American President and pursue
> Bill Reis
> for his gold. Reis uses that gold, however, to direct them against the
> Squid
> God. If the US President, his navy and other agencies are not made
> virtuous
> as such, they are at least properly directed against the greater evil
> of the
> malevolent underwater alien.
>
> I still don't fully understand the ending. Why does Gideon return to
> Woldercan? Because it is his true home? Perhaps it's because the spell
> of
> Cassie's star quality has been broken and without it he has fallen
> from
> virtue back to his old immoral/amoral ways. I don't know what Cassie
> is
> looking for.
>
> As an allegory, AEG is confusing. But I don't think it is an allegory
> any
> more than it's Lovecraftian horror. It uses allegory, or has an
> allegorical
> dimension, but there's a lot more going on and the correspondences
> between
> characters and qualities seem to be dynamic rather than static.
>
> Nigel
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:10:14 -0000
> From: "Nigel Price" <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Subject: (urth) Stingray
> To: "Urth List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNGEENDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Thanks for that, James. I'd forgotten about that marionette reference
> in
> OBW.
>
> There's the story "The Toy Theater" in TIoDDaOSaOS too. That's all
> about
> marionettes.
>
> I started this thread as a sort of joke on myself, but now I'm really
> beginning to wonder!
>
> Nigel
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 20:08:43 -0500
> From: "Matthew Keeley" <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Stingray
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID:
> <44fb53d10811031708s57a39c09k508af7025e14b5bd at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:10 PM, Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
> wrote:
> > Thanks for that, James. I'd forgotten about that marionette
> reference in
> > OBW.
> >
> > There's the story "The Toy Theater" in TIoDDaOSaOS too. That's all
> about
> > marionettes.
> >
> > I started this thread as a sort of joke on myself, but now I'm
> really
> > beginning to wonder!
> >
> > Nigel
> >
>
> And "Strange Birds" from the chapbook of the same name. Have we ever
> discussed those two stories here? I thought they were pretty good, but
> I'm not sure how many people actually ordered the chapbook. Well at
> least Mr. Gevers read it:
> http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/2006/05/strange-birds-indeed.html
>
> Minor spoiler
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
> "Strange Birds" actually features the return of Stromboli [sic?] from
> "The Toy Theater". I guess Wolfe does have a thing for puppets and
> puppeteers.
>
> -Matt
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue 4
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