(urth) Time-traveling through the Urth list

[Gem Caccetta]

Greetings, Urth-lings! 
I have been reading Gene Wolfe since 1981, when a friend gave me a copy of Shadow of The Torturer. Over the decades (yikes!) I have read every novel by Wolfe, and many stories. A year ago, when reading the New Sun books yet again, I decided to see if there were any GW discussion groups on line, and found this list. Since then, I have been reading several entries every day, starting from the very beginning in 1996. At present, I am in 2002. It struck me how lupine it is, how Peace-like, to float through time, becoming acquainted with a cast of characters, in some cases watching young minds mature. What caused me to decide to finally join the list and drop this pebble into the ocean?
Being a woman, I followed with great interest the posts of alga—Alice K. Turner. Her point of view was so frequently mine. I was sad to learn, when I finally searched her name to perhaps see a photo, that Alice passed away in 2015. By that time she had retreated into the past of the list, as I could find no acknowledgment of her passing. I, for one, will miss her voice as my reading takes me into the future.
It was Alice’s posts about John Crowley’s Little, Big that led me to read it. The list also informed me that G.K. Chesterton was a favorite of GW. And I read with agreement posts pertaining to GW’s problematic depiction of women. So my eyebrows went skyward when Book One, Chapter I of Little, Big begins with this epigraph by Chesterton: Men are men, but Man is a woman. In the first two chapters, Crowley introduces us to four strong, fascinating women the likes of which GW never approached (with the exception perhaps of Aunt Olivia in Peace.) I guess this was one aspect of Chesterton outside GW’s ken…
With Alice Turner in my mind, I popped into 2019 to make note of this little coincidence. Now Gene Wolfe is gone as well. I will now return to 2002. To those of you still walking this Urth, and for those who have left it, you are all still alive, receiving visitors in the corridors of time.



gem



p.s. a lovely post on Alice’s passing:  Alice K. Turner Passes Away

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Alice K. Turner Passes Away

By Andrew Porter: I returned from nearly a week away from the computer to find the shocking and horrifying news ...
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