(urth) Horns abilities

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes]

Oh, I am so _embarassed_ not to have thought of Cordwainer Smith...

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Daniel Petersen
<danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, but! You have such giants as LaHaye and Jenkins!
>
> (Ducking and running...)
>
>
> I laid myself bare and you took full advantage.  As soon as I recover from
> this dirty below the belt winding I shall thrash you soundly if I may but
> find a way... (I was laughing aloud truth be told.)  Yes, the high churchman
> Lewis and Williams are great and I'll happily claim them for my 'camp' (the
> fine Cordwainer Smith fits here too I believe).  Of course, with Bunyan and
> Milton we have some of the BEST EVER writers on our team.  Something just
> seemed to go drastically wrong after the 17th century.
>
> Good thoughts on the rest.  I'll have to ponder it all.  Especially some
> idea of 'emerging' from Wolfe's text - a sense of 'completion' or having
> journeyed somewhere during the immersion into his narratives.  I think there
> must be something like this going on - no matter how otherwise ever-open his
> texts remain.  (Probably something similar to going from Briah 'up' to the
> 'higher' universe (I forget the name - starts with 'Y'?) - the journey's FAR
> from over, but you're definitely NOT where you started.
>
> And I agree with you that Wolfe is probably sometimes too tricksy for his
> own good - I trust his intentions but not necessarily his ability to deliver
> - yes.  Good connection to Joyce studies too.
>
> -DOJP
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 7:09 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Daniel Petersen wrote:
>> > I too am an adult convert to Catholicism, among
>> > other things
>>
>> > You've converted as an adult to other religions as well?  Heh, heh, just
>> > jokin'.
>>
>> Other philosophies, to be sure.
>>
>>
>> > Well, I admit I didn't expect you to go there, but, yeah, if we're
>> > talking
>> > about a Logos-cosmos when we say things like 'the world is text' or what
>> > have you, then I'm right there with you.  That's the metaphysics I think
>> > Wolfe brings to his craft - and the craft is richer for it in my
>> > opinion.
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>> > (Incidentally, I accept such a worldview as well, though not myself RC -
>> > a
>> > lowly Proddy I'm afraid - we can't seem to make any great authors of our
>> > own
>> > so we are ever the barnacles on the great RC writers - though I'm proud
>> > to
>> > steal a ride from such legendary vessels as Chesterton, Wolfe, O'Connor,
>> > Percy, Lafferty, etc.)
>>
>> Oh, but! You have such giants as LaHaye and Jenkins!
>>
>> (Ducking and running...)
>>
>> Seriously, there are some pretty darn good Protestant writers,
>> starting with Lewis and Williams (though they're both pretty
>> high-church, in Williams's case so high it's basically Catholic Lite).
>>
>>
>> >> I think that to understand what
>> >> Wolfe is doing here we must understand not only the textuality of the
>> >> text but the _radical_ textuality of the "internal" reality of his
>> >> stories.
>>
>> > Don't think I understand this bit.
>>
>> What I am saying is that inside the text there is nothing but more
>> text. If there is anything "extra-textual," it is what _we_ bring to
>> the text. ("Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts.") The
>> text is composed of signifiers, which (can) signify only because they
>> are part of the web (_textus_) of other signifiers that constitutes
>> the text. As above, so below: the text is fractally textual, when you
>> dig down into it you find the structure of the larger text, repeated
>> to infinity (or as close to infinity as a human creator can manage).
>>
>>
>> > What _is_ there
>> > for us to interpret, but the text and its intertextuality?
>> >
>> > I'm not sure Wolfe ever gets so far down inside a narratological rat's
>> > nest
>> > that he or we can never emerge.
>>
>> What would it mean to "emerge"? To emerge from Wolfe's text is merely
>> to return to the larger textus of "reality," of which we are
>> signifying nodes ... but then, so is Wolfe's text, it is embedded in
>> the larger textus which allows it to signify.
>>
>> > From interviews I'd say he definitely
>> > envisions us going all the way through the labyrinth and out again,
>> > bewildered and humbled, yes, but also wiser and nobler.  We readers have
>> > a
>> > hard time trusting him about this and even wonder if it's just one more
>> > lie,
>>
>> I think Wolfe is a very tricksy writer, but honest in his way. Even
>> his unreliable narrators have their reliability -- once you decrypt
>> _why_ they are hiding you can decode _what_ is hidden. But Wolfe is
>> sometimes too tricksy for his own good and it can be hard to figure
>> out all the "why"s.
>>
>>
>> > I think.  But I have to say, without any thought as to whether I ever
>> > understand even a small percent of the intertextual mysteries he
>> > delivers, I
>> > do trust his face-value claim that he's not just trying to irretrievably
>> > confuse his readers.  (I'm not saying this because I think you, Dan'l,
>> > mistrust Wolfe's claim - I don't know one way or the other.  It just
>> > occurs
>> > to me in thinking of being potentially locked only into his 'internal'
>> > text.)
>>
>> I do indeed trust Wolfe's claim, but distrust his ability to _deliver_
>> on it. I don't think he deliberately creates insoluble puzzles, but I
>> suspect he becomes frustrated with our inability to find what, to him,
>> is so obvious. There's a passage in Campbell and Robinson's "Skeleton
>> Key to Finnegans Wake" where they say that Joyce is driven to his
>> obscurity because he is desperately trying to tell us something too
>> obvious for clarity, or something like that. I think that Wolfe is in
>> his way as obscure, and as brilliant, as Joyce -- and _far_ less
>> impressed with his own cleverness than Joyce was.
>>
>>
>> > I guess I mean that I don't think unreliability is the last word in
>> > Wolfe,
>> > even though he has made such extensive use of it.
>>
>> I don't know if there can ever be a "last word" in any text as rich as
>> the Solar labyrinth, but I agree that, if there were, it would not be
>> unreliability. Wolfe is striving for clarity.
>>
>> --
>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes