(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 82

[Lee Berman]

>James Wynn: I mean, I might have just been lucky in picking my interpretation. However, it brings 
>to mind Lee's young woman/crone picture analogy. Or, Stephen King's ink blot/picture of 
>Jesus analogy in "The Shining". When I read it, I said "Oh, Pike, Blood, Rose of Sharon." People 
>bring different backgrounds to Wolfe's works and sometimes they pay off. I always think of Alice K. 
>Turner's connection between Jonas and the Tin Woodman.
 
wow, that is good. Not sure if I encountered that Alice analogy in my perusal of the Archives before joining.
Nick Chopper did become tin by losing body parts and replacing them with metal ones. It was the opposite
process which created Jonas so I guess he is an anti-Tin Woodman. Just as Baldanders is an anti-Frankenstein;
a monster who created his doctor.

For some reason (aside from Lost In Space robot, heh) I always saw in sad, skinny Jonas riding his merychip and 
vainly pursuing a haughty Jolenta, a model from Don Quixote, Rosinante and Dulcinea. Severian doesn't make the 
best Sancho Panza but hey.
 
James it is a good observation that we all bring different things to the table. There are no universal truths
here and context is more important than many would like to admit in their understanding of others' viewpoints.
Personality conflicts and testosterone levels matter. Even metaphor choice. In the past I used the lovers-
dolphins optical illusion to make my point and failed to make it. But the young woman-crone seemed to resonate
better, probably because as Antonio so aptly noted, she is a shapeshifter. Always easier to "believe" in 
something we see happening right in front of us.
 
(haven't read any Stephen King. Is that Jesus/inkblot thing in The Shining movie?)