(urth) Dionysus

[Lee Berman]

>Gerry Quinn: So Wolfe, so familiar with every obscure god or South American jungle bird, remains 
>uniquely provincial when it comes to the meaning of 'vine'?  But surely, someone who knew that 
>Dionysius was associated with wine would, if he heard of an association also with vines, draw the 
>obvious conclusion that this means grape vines? I think the association by way of ivy is stronge, 
>if one feels the need to make such a association..

Gerry, again I think in your rush to convert interpretation of Gene Wolfe to mathematical principles
you are missing the point. We are talking about the thought processes of an author as he creates
a story. The commutative property of addition does not always work for understanding the human brain.
Ordering and sequence matter (thus Tzadkiel-shapechange equals Inire-shapechange is a backwards 
"argument" and of course leads to a silly conclusion nobody would make).
 
If, as I think James was trying to suggest, Gene Wolfe had an idea for creating parasitic plant creatures
which were thematically related to Dionysus, vines would be a meaningful choice as a connecting
concept. The thought process could be Dionysus-> God of Vines-> Inhumi-plants. If Wolfe were American.
 
If Wolfe was British or some other non-American speaker of English I could understand your objection
to James' suggestion. Perhaps a British mind would first associate the word "liana" when thinking of 
parasitic jungle plants making a backward connection to Dionysus a bit ridiculous (god of lianas? feh!).
 
Ivy is a possible alternate thought pathway from Dionysus to parsitic vines. Perhaps British english
speakers associate ivy with parasitism more than we American? Notice I am asking, with a sincere 
interest in the answer. Can anyone here speak on this? I think we Americans are most likely to associate
ivy with Harvard and other hallowed halls and walls. 
 
I would like to ask if there any Americans here who cannot see the connection of vines to tree parasites 
as a primary association?
 
 
Gerry your position seems to be: 
 
"Gene Wolfe is a worldly, educated, highly intelligent man. Therefore his thinking must be the same as mine. 
Since I need grapes to connect Dionysus and vines so must Gene Wolfe. We can throw out seven decades of him 
living in the USA, interacting with Americans, speaking American english and being exposed to American media as 
unimportant to his writing. If I, Gerry Quinn, think something, it pretty much has to be right. There is no 
point in listening to what Americans think about this. Why do they matter?."
 
In a way I understand. There are no cultural differences in math.