<div>Dan'l, I read _Dhalgren_ just a couple of years ago, and I seem to recall that all or most of the female characters were objectified, scorned and degraded in one way or another. </div>
<div>I don't remember any outright rape, but that's not requisite for a hateful attitude towards women. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>_Dhalgren_ is supposedly famous for being easy to start, tough to finish, and I know I almost quit a couple of times. I don't know if I've ever read a long novel that was so inconsistent. He wrote the first chapter in an impressive stream-of-consciousness style, only to abandon it entirely (except for a brief encore at the end), unless you count the bizarre monologues. I lost track of how many times he'd introduce a few characters and a new plot, only to abandon everything and write 50 pages of pornography, or 50 pages of rambling semi-coherent monologue.
</div>
<div>It's a weird book, but not weird-good. I think It may well have been condemned to obscurity if not for the naughty bits. It's probably one of the worst novels I ever completed. A 250 page condensed version would likely be solid, though no _Babel-17_. Maybe "Reader's Digest" could be interested in the undertaking? *grin*
<br> </div>
<div>Dan'l:</div>
<div>> Actually, there are passages where various </div>
<div>> characters deliver homilies. Silk does it a _lot_ in </div>
<div>>LONG SUN.<br> </div>
<div>You're right, of course. His characters do moralize,</div>
<div>as people are wont to do, but I think Wolfe does a</div>
<div>good job of leaving a bit of doubt about who's </div>
<div>acting as the authorial mouthpiece. Sure,</div>
<div>Silk may show a lot of wisdom, but within </div>
<div>definite limits. The mere thought of Hyacinth turns</div>
<div>him into a quivering schoolboy, and his moral center </div>
<div>is defined by devotion to a absurd religion that </div>
<div>worships feuding videogame deities - plus it only </div>
<div>recently quit sacrificing humans, and for the wrong</div>
<div>reason at that.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>On an unrelated note, let me throw out a question that</div>
<div>has always intrigued me. Sometimes Severian was able</div>
<div>to heal with the Claw, sometimes not. Did we ever figure </div>
<div>out what criteria determined his success or failure? </div>
<div>Toward the close of _Citadel_, in one of </div>
<div>Wolfe's fuzziest Hallmark moments, </div>
<div>Sev realizes that the claw is just a common thorn,</div>
<div>and that "the power was inside me all along! </div>
<div>I healed Triskele!"</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Was the power specific to Sev as the Conciliator,</div>
<div>or just general divine (or Hierogrammatic, if you </div>
<div>want to be SFnal) power accessible to any old</div>
<div>body? </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Either way, you'd think that afterwards he would heal </div>
<div>people by simply laying his hands on them or </div>
<div>something. Why didn't he ever do this?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I seem to remember an idea that Sev</div>
<div>dying for the first time in _Shadow Of The Torturer_,</div>
<div>drowning in the Gyoll. Is this theory strongly supported</div>
<div>by the text or is it just wild conjecture? If it's a good </div>
<div>theory, it means Sev was an aquastor throughout. Did "the Claw's" healing power come from the fact that Sev was an aquastor? Is that the SFnal justification?</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>