(urth) South America

[Jerry Friedman]

>From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>

>>Jerry Friedman: The Commonwealth is clearly in the southern hemisphere, 
>>and there are far more suggestions of South America than of Africa or 
>>Australasia, but I don't think we're supposed to connect it with the 
>>real present-day South America, still less connect the mountains with 
>>the Andes or Nessus with Buenos Aires.
>
>Interesting! The debate does carry on after all. I would agree with the
>assessment that there are far more S. America references than to any other
>geographic location on earth. This includes extant and fossil animals and 
>human cultural references.
>
>So I guess the question becomes: if Wolfe didn't intend us to associate the 
>Commonwealth with South America why did he use such an overwhelming volume of 
>South American references?                           


Color and flavor.  These things aren't incidental--you remember that BotNS
started with a cool costume for a con, and the storyteller in "The Tale of the
Rose and that Nightingale" says that "fantasy, color, and pathos are the
chief" merits of a tale.  Writers have to give to airy nothing a local habitation
and a name.


A good source of solid details is real places and cultures.  South America worked
well--it's not overdone like medieval Europe, it's different from Byzantium, it
ties in with the character who has resemblances to Borges.

I agree with something David Stockhoff said--we can see the continent as
the result of a glance at a map of South America, not detailed study of the
map.  I put it too strongly when I said I didn't think we were supposed to
connect it with South America, but I still see no reason to connect the
mountains with the Andes or Nessus with Buenos Aires.


Jerry Friedman