(urth) Typhon's nature

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 

> > Show me where the text implies Typhon engaged in sacred incest, and 
> > I’ll be interested.

 
> This has already been done. WOlfe chose to name Typhon-Pas' wife
> "Echidna". Mythological Echinda was a snake-woman and was the sister and 
> wife of Typhon and the mother of Scylla and Sphigx (sphinx) among other
> monsters.

Wikipedia gives two accounts of Typhon’s origin, and four for Echidna.  Of the eight combinations, Echidna is his sister in one and his niece in one.  Wikipedia is not exhaustive and others could be found.

I notice you don’t mention Typhon’s father.  Could that be something to do with the fact that his father was TARTARUS?  In BotLS, the Whorl god named Tartarus was clearly Pas’s son.  [In the Hera origin story, Typhon had no father.] 


> Long Sun Echidna is a snake woman, wife to Typhon and mother of Scylla and
> Sphygx. If we understand that there are puzzles to solve in this book, the
> sibling status of Typhon and Echidna isn't a difficult one to solve.

I think you (and some others) greatly misunderstand the nature of Wolfe’s books.  You seem to think of them as some sort of puzzle in which a hidden underlying story, cloned from some ancient myth or other, is disguised as a science fiction story.  The object (you think) is to peel away the extraneous matter and locate the crossword clues to the true story you think is lurking underneath.  You clutch at every possible classical reference because with those there’s always some way to play six degrees of Kevin Bacon towards whatever scheme you are trying to impose on the story.

Why would Wolfe engage in a complicated, arbitrary, pointless scheme such as this?  He is writing his own stories.  Science fiction stories.  Yes, he enriches them with classical references, but he is not rewriting the classics.  Yes, he loves to place keystones of his story in a subtle and understated way, but they are always there in plain sight and they are NOT in general found in proper names.  [To place them in proper names would in fact be a gross dereliction of artistry, excluding the reader who is attentive but lacks a particular literary background.  I will allow that they can be in proper names as well as in the story proper, and that exceptions could be made in certain circumstances.]

The story of the BotNS is its own.  Wolfe has obviously taken inspiration and ideas from many sources, but these sources are just raw material and not in any sense what the story is about.  Wolfe takes the raw material and twists it into the shapes he wants, and the texture of it is still there and if he is successful the texture fits the story he is telling.  But it is subservient; it is not part of the story.

Read the text with care and you will find answers in events and in the words of the characters.  Chase allusions instead and you will produce random noise which you will then interpret to fulfil some arbitrary thesis, just as we can hear whatever music we like when we listen to white noise.


> You 
> have four linked puzzled pieces (snakey, Typhon, Scylla, Sphigx) and one 
> missing piece (siblings).  Simply plug it in. It fits.

No, it’s just noise, unless there’s some reason why it’s significant that Typhon’s wife should be his sister,. and if there were some reason for that – maybe there is but nobody has presented it yet – it would be in the 
story and the names would just drive it home, or give the classically educated reader a knowing smile.
 
So, what do you think are the implications of Tartarus actually being Pas’s father?  He must be hiding right?  I know, he’s Father Inire!  When you play this game there’s no place to stop until there’s nothing left of what Wolfe actually wrote.


> Against this positive evidence that Typhon and Echidna are siblings we are 
> getting an argument that they are not siblings based on....well, nothing I 
> guess aside from a gut-level feeling that incest just ain't normal.

Actually it’s based on the fact that there is no reason in the story to think they are siblings, just as there’s no reason to think Tartarus is Pas’s father.

 
> It was normal for pagan gods and it was normal for pharonic dynasties both
> of which lend themselves to the literary creation ofthe gods of the Whorl.
> This has been pointed out, but without text evidence Gerry bravely soldiers 
> on in his insistance that Typhon and Echidna cannot be siblings.  I guess that 
> level of devotion to intransigence does warrant a bit of admiration.      

You can find anything you want in the literary sources of the gods of the Whorl.  You can find incest if that’s your obsession, or you can find as many or more outcrossings with non-human creatures if you want to go in the opposite direction from incest.  In either case you’re not paying attention to the book Wolfe wrote, you’re writing your own book, incorporating a word here and there from Wolfe’s and ignoring the rest.

Wolfe is writing science fiction novels, not detective stories or gnostic scrolls.  Read them as such, and a lot of the so-called “puzzles” will evaporate.

- Gerry Quinn


 
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