(urth) lots of stuff

Jerry Friedman jerry_friedman at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 9 14:31:30 PDT 2010


From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>

>From: "António Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
...

>> I'm not sure that's what you're getting at, but I've asked some days ago, if 
>>Tzadkiel is evil, where are the *good*
>> people opposing the new sun, since the ones that seem to oppose it don't 
>>compare favourably with the ones
>> serving it. That to me is the chief problem with the Tzadkiel-is-evil idea.

> I must have missed that, but yes, that is what I am getting at.  It seems like 
>a structural necessity in the text.

I don't see that.  If there are any "good" characters in /Pirate Freedom/, 
they're pretty minor.  As I recall.  But I don't think Tzadkiel (who I'd like to 
forget) was supposed to be evil.

On the monkey business--I didn't notice the monkey repetitions, and I agree that 
they're interesting.  Perhaps even more clearly crying out for an explanation 
are the two appearances of Fechin.  I have no idea what the explanation might 
be, but I really don't think it's that Rudesind, the old man, or Fechin is 
Inire.  I find it much more believable that we're supposed to think the baboon 
at the lazaret is a spy for Inire.

(Somebody asked why /Father/ Inire.  I still want to know.  And I'm with those 
who think he isn't sexually interested in girls, or any humans.)

People, I think Ryan Quinn especially, have been saying they think that since 
Wolfe spent all that time on TBotNS, every detail must be significant.  I don't 
think that's necessarily true.  Nadine Gordimer, in her introduction to a 
collection of her early short stories, defined the short story as fiction short 
enough for the writer to keep it all in his or her head at once.  (As I 
recall.)  Vladimir Nabokov claimed he wrote his novels this way.  He wrote on 
index cards and could fill in any point in the story (though he also said he 
wore out erasers faster than pencil lead).  He may have written /Ada/ this way, 
but TBotNS is more than twice as long, and I don't believe Wolfe knew at every 
point what he had written at every other point that readers might connect with 
it.  (Heck, Nabokov didn't notice every possible false lead either.)  In 
particular, I think that when he wrote the appendix to /Shadow/, he was thinking 
that it took place in our future, not in a past cycle of the universe.

Executive summary: When he mentioned a monkey, he might not have remembered 
every other time he mentioned a monkey.

(By the way, Nabokov said specifically that some of his stories, maybe all his 
later ones, contained a second tale hidden under the first one, like the "Second 
House" that Lee mentioned.  I recommend him for those who like fiction of that 
kind.  I'll also say, and have said at NABOKV-L, that Wolfe is the most 
Nabokovian sf writer.  But I'm not guaranteeing you'll like Nabokov.)

I too was horrified by the flood in TUotNS (though I'd stopped enjoying the book 
long before that because I felt the writing was far below Wolfe's standard).  
The afterlife doesn't mitigate the disaster unless the victims got as good a 
chance to repent as they would have if they hadn't been killed.  True, the Bible 
says God caused a flood, but he seems to have thought it was a bad idea 
afterwards, which he apparently didn't after the flood Severian caused.

Jerry Friedman



      



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