(urth) 5HC

Marc Aramini marcaramini at gmail.com
Wed Sep 3 06:28:56 PDT 2014


Harkening back to Gerry's comment here ... Wolfe's very nature is so
cryptic sometimes the final structural layer really is a trick.  Face to
face at the 2013 Nebulas Kim Stanley Robinson told me Damon Knight loved
"The Changeling" but could never get to the bottom of it after I explained
some of the stuff going on in the story to him and the externally
verifiable 1931 birthday, etymology of the word oaf as an elfin changeling,
etc.  He said he wished I could have explained it to Damon before he died,
who knew he hadn't figured it out.

Once you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just a
logical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed that
detail for  more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it to his
friend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide reading
public.

Wolfe is quite simply an entertainer who is not quite forthright with all
the stuff in his stories.


On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:01 AM, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >Gerry Quinn: I've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to
>
> >trick or trap readers. He's not writing a load of nonsense
>
> >and hiding the clues to the real story in isolated words or
>
> >phrases or names.  If he wants to tell us something, he will
>
> >tell it.
>
>
> "Trip" and "trap" are rather loaded words regarding the intentions
>
> of the author. Instead of saying it that way,  I find it clear that
>
> Wolfe sometimes expects more from his readers than they are able to
>
> produce and/or sometimes inserts mysteries in his stories that are
>
> not intended to be solved by many (or perhaps by any) of his readers.
>
>
> One example is from UotNS which features a flood of Urth. Wolfe never
>
> originally planned to write this book. So is the flood an add-on to
>
> the story he hadn't originally intended?
>
>
> A re-perusal of the first four books of the story finds a number of
>
> hints that Severian's salvation and re-creation of Urth into Ushas
>
> involved a flood. It's just that nobody was able to figure it out
>
> from those clues originally provided.
>
>
> Another example is the Dionysian aspect to the deity of the Briatic
>
> universe. In Short Sun we are rather explicitly given the "son of
>
> Semele" clue which is a pretty easy clue to figure out. But if
>
> we go back to BotNS, we can find other veiled hints to Dionysus
>
> which nobody (that I know of) was able to get.
>
>
> There is the example of Dr. Marsch being replaced by Victor Trenchard
>
> to consider. As previously discussed, many highly intelligent and
>
> insightful members of this board were unconvinced this replacement had
>
> taken place until Gene Wolfe openly revealed it in an interview.
>
>
> From these examples I find a pattern which clearly suggests Gene Wolfe
>
> includes mysteries within his stories that many readers don't get, some
>
> mysteries that most readers don't get and some mysteries that nobody has
>
> gotten, even to this day.
>
>
> One of the reasons this board continues on.
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20140903/7b0a1948/attachment-0002.htm>


More information about the Urth mailing list