(urth) Pike's ghost

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>Jerry Friedman: Just disagreeing with Lee's comment that the word "mandragora" 
>>could only point to Typhon.  I don't think any of these word games /necessarily/ 
>>point to one thing.  You can always find connections to others.  Of course, you 
>>and Lee and others may have reasons for preferring one connection.
>
>You miscontrue my point, Jerry. In fact I don't think "mandragora" can only refer
>to Typhon. I completely think the references to mandrake and occultism and even
>satanism are there and intentional. My history of posts reflects that. But I do not 
>ignore that Typhon is also associated with Satan.

See below.


>I think Wolfe writes in this manner- using a constellation of associated ideas with
>internal story connections to convey his message. My assertion is that "mandragora"
>must (in my view) refer to Typhon, not that it may *only* (for all readers) refer 
>to Typhon.


Got it.  I disagree with that too.  Unless you're just saying you're certain that it refers to Typhon, which I can't argue with.


>>Leaving the question of Typhon's alien nature aside for now, the Mandragora seems 
>>almost indisputable proof of Typhon's potential to be cloned or downloaded into a
>>new body in some manner. There is nothing dragon-like about the fetus in the bottle.
>>What possible reason is there for Wolfe to call it "Mandragora" if not to refer to 
>>Typhon, the only other reference to a man-dragon there is.

That's what I was disagreeing with.  I took your question to be 
rhetorical (even to the lack of a question mark), since you were talking about "almost indisputable proof".  In that case you appeared to be 
saying the only possible reason for Wolfe to call it a mandragora was to refer to Typhon.  I don't think I misconstrued your statement.


If your posting history shows that you've seen other reasons as well, I'm afraid I'd forgotten them (or 
never saw them--I've been skipping lots of posts lately and have at other times too).

In a tetralogy of hundreds of thousands of words, chance verbal 
connections are inevitable.  No author in the human race (to which so many of my favorite authors belong) can possibly anticipate every 
connection a reader might make and write the book so as to forestall it.  The evidence for this is that you can always find more connections, such as the ones I suggested to Ymar, the Sleeper, Severian, and the jungle guide.  So connections can occur by accident.  If you take the approach of selecting the ones that make for a reading that satisfies you, you're very likely to be selecting some that occurred by accident.  Of course that may be all right with you.  To me it's very far from "almost indisputable proof" of the connection, still farther from proof of an idea based on the connection (such as that Typhon could be downloaded into a new body).

>I think the mandragora is part of a constellation of story elements which help direct 
>how Wolfe wants us to think of Typhon through the arc of the 12 book Sun Series- that
>being as a superhumanly gifted, demonic tyrant-deity who sows the seeds of his own 
>destruction when he devotes his efforts to self-indulgence but who has the capacity 
>to become a benign, demiurgical Creator when his efforts are so directed. This, of 
>course, is a parallel to certain lines of gnostic religious philosophy regarding God, 
>Devil and creation.


As I said, I have very grave doubts that Wolfe had any parts of the Short and Long Sun in mind before the New Sun was finished.  Otherwise I can see what you're saying about Typhon--but not the mandragora.

>>Oddly enough, it doesn't take me to those questions at all.
>
>I get the impression you are offended by suggestions that the story takes a reader 
>anywhere,

Certainly not.

> specifically (even S. America ;- )).

Not offended, though I dislike statements that can be greatly improved by qualifying them.

"For all real numbers x, x/x = 1." --false
"For all real numbers x except zero, x/x = 1." --true
"We all agree that the Commonwealth's continent is an analog of South America." --false
"We all agree that the Commonwealth's continent has many resemblances to South America, but differs in at least some details." --probably true

> But if you do have a sense of where 
>WOlfe's writing takes you, which you have not previously revealed, I am interested in 
>hearing about it.
Nothing I haven't previously revealed.


Jerry Friedman

P. S. Not to mislead anyone on a trivial point--Chesterton isn't one of my favorite authors, though I do like "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong..."