(urth) mountain and laundress

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:
> Marc Aramini wrote:
>>
>> I normally don't think looking at other texts is extremely
>> enlightening for Wolfe's works but I feel differently for Evil Guest.  I
>> happened to be looking on my computer and came across "someone comes to
>> town someone leaves town" and started reading it.  It had a blurb from
>> wolfe and in the opening it says:
>>
>> "Alan's father was a mountain and his mother was a washing
>> machine... his brothers were a dead man, a trio of nesting dolls, a fortune
>> teller, and an island."
>
> I think you've nailed it with this reference. I took a quick look at the
> online html version of this book:
> http://craphound.com/someone/Cory_Doctorow_-_Someone_Comes_to_Town_Someone_Leaves_Town.htm
> and it's a perfect fit.
>
> 1) The mountain quakes when it's angry.
> 2) There are gnomes and golems in its caves.
> 3) The setting is near Toronto, Canada. (The protagonist goes to Willowdale,
> a suburb of Toronto, at one point).
> 4) The nearest large mountain to Toronto is Blue Mountain. There is a trek
> to the summit which takes about 2.5 hours on foot.
> 5) The mother of Alan and his siblings is a literal washing machine. His
> father is a mountain.
>
> With this mystery settled, there is no longer any real connection to
> Margaret as a laundress.

Seconded. Reading through, the very first time, even before the
rumbling was mentioned, I thought, 'Didn't I read a story with that
already?' I didn't even need to look up Doctorow's book to check.

-- 
gwern