(urth) lots of stuff

[brunians at brunians.org]

It's God's plan that everybody die.

Sometimes a whole bunch go at once.

Get over it.

It's really not a big deal.

.


> 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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