(urth) symbols, motifs, and extra textual relevance vs. onomastic onanism
Gerry Quinn
gerry at bindweed.com
Thu Mar 28 08:04:11 PDT 2013
From: Marc Aramini
--- On Wed, 3/27/13, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
> > Sandwalker's 'tree' grows large when he sleeps with Seven Girls Waiting.
> > The Marshmen steal boy children from the Hillmen and castrate them to
> > make their shamans (as Sweetmouth notices in the pit), and they do not
> > grow beards. The talk of trees is essentially myth and wordplay [*].
> This is where we vary the most - I think the tree allusion to his genitals
> is
> the distraction away from their other form of reproduction, this one we
> are
> mechanistically familiar with as readers, a metaphor in use because there
> is more than one way to inseminate an abo, skin a cat, or what have you.
Doesn't that multiply entities unnecessarily? The abos have gender, sex,
childbirth and hormonal systems akin to ours. Sandwalker says he is a man
in part because he has known woman - he does not mention trees - nor is he
baffled by the Shadow Childrens' 'wife' metaphor for their drug. What
evidence or need is there for a secondary system of reproduction? David
says they mated with trees, but how would he distinguish myth from reality?
All he knows of abos is vague tales. VRT's knowledge is more authoritative.
At no time in his story does anyone actually mate with a tree.
[*] And, I should perhaps have added, abo sexual politics.
- Gerry Quinn
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