(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[David Stockhoff]

On 12/15/2011 9:57 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> > On 12/15/2011 2:23 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> >
> > What we have learned of these things from fairy-tales doesn’t really
> >
> > help us here. They don’t mirror their fairy-tale counterparts. BotNS
> >
> > really isn’t a fairy-tale in any strong sense. Or so it seems to me.
>
> >
> What strikes me about the perspective amply revealed in this post is
> >
> that when others try to make one-to-one correspondences between Wolfe
> >
> and myth this approach is derided, but when it's done to prove a
> >
> negative, it's OK. Look, 1:1 logic fails to work 100%, so there must be
> >
> nothing there.
> That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that fairy-tale logic 
> seems to work in the region of 0%. That’s the opposite of one-to-one 
> correspondence.

That's exactly what I said. It doesn't work for you 100%, so it's a 
total failure. You see zero correspondence. But I'm also addressing the 
fact that you use the 100% correspondence test at all, while not 
allowing others to do so even experimentally.


>
> > You'd have to be blind not to see it. Terminus Est DOES have "magic"
> > powers that are clearly defined in the text.
> What powers?

I'm sorry, I thought you had read "the text." Did you not know about the 
sword's "magical" provenance and construction?
> > Dorcas IS a sleeping
> > beauty---so what if we don't understand what she is until long after we
> > meet her?
> What does a purported correspondence between Dorcas and the Sleeping 
> Beauty tell us, or add to the story? Dorcas was under no enchantment, 
> Severian did not set out to find her, there was no wall of briars. She 
> was beautiful, she got resurrected – that’s not enough to equate the 
> stories.

"Equate"? What is this "equate"? I did not know literary criticism was 
about equations.

And what do you mean, "Dorcas was under no enchantment"? Did you read 
the book?
> > Fairies live underground in barrows, just like the House
> > Absolute, indicating otherworldly power.
> And that’s nothing to do with anything. Man-apes live underground. And 
> miners. And worms. And who says all fairies live underground, or that 
> fairies correspond to kings? You can’t just point to a random 
> correspondence and claim it is significant. You need correspondences 
> with meat on them.

I didn't point to a random correspondence. Someone else did---except it 
wasn't random, it was a good example.

If you don't know fairies live underground, then you know nothing of the 
topic upon which you so boldly discourse.
>
> > If it seems that "the logic of fairy-tales will be of limited
> > application" in BNS, then perhaps one's grasp of that logic and its 
> uses
> > is to blame. I totally sympathize with the feeling that fairies are
> > "clinically insane" (see _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_) and accept
> > that apparently-insane fairy logic is stronger in obviously 
> fairy-driven
> > Wolfe stories like _Sorcerer's House_, but knowing this is not much 
> help
> > even in those cases. We barely understand fairies, if at all, except to
> > know that they are bound by absolutes. And that IS the point.
> No, that’s not even *a* point, unless you can point to a real 
> correspondence in the particular story at issue.

The point went whooshing past you with the speed of a feathered arrow 
shot at a bounding white stag by an aged king who has become separated 
from his companions in an unfamiliar part of the forest he had roamed 
since he was a child. Oh ... right. Never mind.
>
> > The demonstrable facts remain that BNS uses fairy tale elements
> > (alongside S&S and many others derived from fairy stories) and its
> > universe, like Faerie, cares little for what individual humans think of
> > it and its modes of reasoning. This is the essence of "otherworldly."
> It uses elements of bakery too – Severian and other characters eat 
> bread. That doesn’t mean that bakery is particularly relevant to 
> understanding it. Even if mould on bread cares little for what humans 
> think.
> All I’m saying is that if you want to make a viable case for fairy 
> tales, you need to do more than say there is a girl in the story who 
> was dead, which is a bit like being under an enchanted sleep, and she 
> looked okay, and therefore it’s about the Sleeping Beauty. Buffy the 
> Vampire Slayer was also pretty and blonde and dead and got resurrected 
> – so was Series 6 of Buffy about the Sleeping Beauty too? No more so 
> than BotNS, in my opinion. It’s too easy to find endless random 
> coincidences of that sort in any large work.

All you're saying, Gerry, and with as much eloquence and force and 
conviction as you can muster, is that you're an illiterate know-nothing. 
This is the entirety of your argument, and it is overwhelming.

I salute you.