(urth) Hethor's Poppet
Lee Berman
severiansola at hotmail.com
Sun Jun 20 19:48:33 PDT 2010
I find Gene Wolfe's work to often be veiled but detectably
autobiographical. I must guess references to violet-eyed beauties were
inspired by Elizabeth Taylor, famous for that color eyes, and a teen movie
star only a year younger than Mr.Wolfe.
I can't imagine Agia as a paracoita; she is small but not violet-eyed
plus she is a hard-ass and hard-headed (heh heh) stubborn, to boot. Not good
characteristics in a sex toy. Thecla has violet eyes but is hardly small
or doll-like; she is even described as having some masculine qualities.
I propose Phaedria, from 5HoC as the most similar Wolfe character to the
paracoita. She has the violet eyes and is presented as rather poppet-
doll-like, feminine and on the compliant side. Moreover Borski has proposed
that Hethor is a shape-changer. Perhaps a Shadow Child or Annese decided to
board the ship and travel to another universe (i.e. another Wolfe story) taking
along Phaedria, or more likely, a clone of her, as a pleasant companion.
Surely Gene Wolfe had similar dreams in his youth.
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