(urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

António Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com
Fri Nov 18 04:35:16 PST 2011


James Wynn wrote (18-11-2011 01:33):
> Antonio, let me give you an example of the way I read Wolfe and you can see
> if it is useful to you as well. When I read The Book of the Long Sun the
> second time. The names of the three sybs: Rose, Mint, and Marble combined
> with the Sun St. Manteion led me to the story of Aristaeus, the prophet of
> Apollo. It just so happened that my reference on this was Robert Graves'
> "The Greek Myths". As I read on I realized "Hey, this part of the LS story
> is sort of like the next part in the Aristeaus story the way Graves tells
> it. If Wolfe is tracking this story, I should see such-and-such next." And I
> did. The story kept riffing on the life of Aristeaus. And then I also
> discovered that according to Herodotus (the major source for the first two
> Latro volumes) Aristeaus appeared in Italy after his death and claimed that
> he had been Apollo's raven-- hmm...there's some Silk in there. And I learned
> that Pindar (also a major character in the Latro story) had written a major
> work on the life of Aristaeus so it now I was pretty certain that Wolfe was
> quite familiar with Aristaeus. Finally, I was consistently troubled that
> whenever Incus played a part in the elements of Long Sun version of
> Aristaeus's life, he played a female (and I also noted that he played the
> role of Hesphaetus's "mechanical woman"). So that was how I decided Incus
> was female and learned the identity of the mysterious Maytera Corn. And I
> expected next that Silk would have a son, who would be turned into a deer
> and killed by his own hounds. Boy was I disappointed. I didn't try to MAKE
> it fit, though. I just said, "Wolfe isn't carrying it that far." Then
> eventually I realized that the greenbuck Horn encountered resurrected his
> body and taken his mission...until his own men turned on him in Green and
> killed him. And afterwards I realized that this tracked to the story of the
> son of Aristaeus and I was glad. Anyway, that's how I do it.

It's not only interesting but commendable. I can't see myself doing that, 
not because I disagree with it, but just due to personal preference. I 
really prefer not to dwell on those associations. Of course, I'm still 
interested to read about where they've led you to.



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