(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/10/2011 9:59 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
> "Awake, for the Morning in the Bowl of Night, has flung
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> the Stone that puts Stars to Flight"
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>
>
>> David Stockhoff: Venus is the stone, that last star which precedes the sun. I have no idea really, but if Venus is love and God is love---facts which do not escape the author of Long Sun---well, then ....
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>
> Aw, c'mon, 'fess up! This is bending over backwards and twisting sideways
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> to avoid the unavoidable conclusion that Wolfe means the passage to refer
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> to the sun like so many other sun references in BotNS (not BotNV).

Certainly the sun approaches. But his herald is Skuld.
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> I'm not arguing (at this time) that Kayaam meant the sun in his stanza. I'm
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> arguing that WOlfe interprets it as the sun and that's why Severian/Apu Punchau
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> gets that passage sung to him at this crucial time. He needs to be reminded
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> he is the sun (which is the source of his power and his salvation from the
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> depths of human history).
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>
>
> Anyway, Wolfe has specifically chastised his readers to not fall into the
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> pop culture trap of calling Venus a goddess of love. "She was a sex goddess".
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> God is sex?  Not sure that works as well. (and Kypris was the consort of Pas
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> not The outsider)


That's probably correct. I withdraw the suggestion.

The relation to BotNS is tangential, of course.