(urth) And Now For Something Completely

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 

> Gerry Quinn:  
> > Pig appears to have carried some of Pas/Silk’s personality, which
> > became trapped when he was blinded.

> > Pigs should be associated with Phaea, but there’s no obvious connection here.
 
> There is. The obvious connection is what you say: pigs should be associated with Phaea. For
> me the implication is that the gods, like the cards which sometime represent them, are being
> shuffled and redealt in different combinations.
But what’s Phaea got to do with anything?  She doesn’t appear to be of any great significance – I don’t even know whether she sided with Echidna or Pas.  If we take the name Pig as a sign of Phaea’s involvement  (and remember, absolutely *everything* including any possible name he could have is associated with one or more gods) what does it tell us?  Absolutely nothing as far as I can see.  
Where are playing cards said to represent the gods?  

> > As is generally the case in Wolfe, names are atmospheric, and often tell us something in story 
> > context (e.g. the animal-vegetable-mineral naming scheme in Viron) but more abstruse references 
> > never tell us anything of significance that isn’t made clear in other ways.  
 
> I think everyone would generally agree with this, except on your expectation that Wolfe is 
> writing in ways in which everything is "Clear". If clearly written and understandable prose
> is what you prefer, I you can read Wolfe that way. But you will have to dismiss large portions
> of the text as gibberish.

On the contrary, that is exactly what you do when you argue that everyone is Father Inire or whatever.  I keep pointing out how you are ignoring the events and characters described.

 
> I find Wolfe to be a deliberately mysterious writer, prompting the reader to partial but not full 
> understanding for some elements of his work. I think Wolfe has a purpose to this.  It isn't just 
> to confuse his readers. He leaves the focus fuzzy on subjects he considers human intelligence too 
> feeble to fully grasp like the nature of god(s), the history of the universes, etc.
 
> We can take the Silent Silk and Silver Silk references. Gerry, you are absolutely right that to
> off-handedly associate those names with Silenus and Silvanus would be silly. What we would need
> to make that connection would be a reference to Faunus or Pan or Bacchus or Dionysus. 

If it were a reference to Faunus *and* Dionysus, and if fauns had some meaning in context, it might mean something.  But we know where the names Silent and Silver Silk come from anyway.

  
> We could go to the suggestion that Typhon and Echidna are siblings. Sure their names suggest it, 
> but that by itself wouldn't be enough. We'd have to have more mythological support. And we have 
> it.

No, we’d have to have some support in the book written by Gene Wolfe.  Where is it?

 
> Gene Wolfe is a man who has widely read and been deeply steeped in mythological stories. If he
> didn't expect us to guess that Typhon and Echidna were siblings he would have given them different
> names (and/or perhaps a happy marriage). 

If he wanted to do this, he’d also have avoided giving the name of Typhon’s father to his son. 

Or he could have, you know, actually indicated in the text somewhere that Echidna was Typhon’s sister.  In fact he would have, if for some reason there was a point to such a revelation and he wanted to include it.

- Gerry Quinn
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