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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=severiansola@hotmail.com
href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com">Lee Berman</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>> > Show me where the text implies Typhon engaged in sacred
incest, and <BR>> > I’ll be interested.<BR><BR> </DIV>
<DIV>> This has already been done. WOlfe chose to name Typhon-Pas'
wife<BR>> "Echidna". Mythological Echinda was a snake-woman and was the
sister and <BR>> wife of Typhon and the mother of Scylla and Sphigx (sphinx)
among other<BR>> monsters.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Wikipedia gives two accounts of Typhon’s origin, and four for
Echidna. Of the eight combinations, Echidna is his sister in one and his
niece in one. Wikipedia is not exhaustive and others could be found.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I notice you don’t mention Typhon’s father. Could that be something
to do with the fact that his father was TARTARUS? In BotLS, the Whorl god
named Tartarus was clearly Pas’s son. [In the Hera origin story, Typhon
had no father.] </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>> Long Sun Echidna is a snake woman, wife to Typhon and mother of
Scylla and<BR>> Sphygx. If we understand that there are puzzles to solve in
this book, the<BR>> sibling status of Typhon and Echidna isn't a difficult
one to solve.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think you (and some others) greatly misunderstand the nature of Wolfe’s
books. You seem to think of them as some sort of puzzle in which a hidden
underlying story, cloned from some ancient myth or other, is disguised as a
science fiction story. The object (you think) is to peel away the
extraneous matter and locate the crossword clues to the true story you think is
lurking underneath. You clutch at every possible classical reference
because with those there’s always some way to play six degrees of Kevin Bacon
towards whatever scheme you are trying to impose on the story.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Why would Wolfe engage in a complicated, arbitrary, pointless scheme such
as this? He is writing his own stories. Science fiction
stories. Yes, he enriches them with classical references, but he is not
rewriting the classics. Yes, he loves to place keystones of his story in a
subtle and understated way, but they are always there in plain sight and they
are NOT in general found in proper names. [To place them in proper names
would in fact be a gross dereliction of artistry, excluding the reader who is
attentive but lacks a particular literary background. I will allow that
they can be in proper names as well as in the story proper, and that exceptions
could be made in certain circumstances.]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The story of the BotNS is its own. Wolfe has obviously taken
inspiration and ideas from many sources, but these sources are just raw material
and not in any sense what the story is about. Wolfe takes the raw material
and twists it into the shapes he wants, and the texture of it is still there and
if he is successful the texture fits the story he is telling. But it is
subservient; it is not part of the story.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Read the text with care and you will find answers in events and in the
words of the characters. Chase allusions instead and you will produce
random noise which you will then interpret to fulfil some arbitrary thesis, just
as we can hear whatever music we like when we listen to white noise.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>> You <BR>> have four linked puzzled pieces (snakey, Typhon, Scylla,
Sphigx) and one <BR>> missing piece (siblings). Simply plug it in. It
fits.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No, it’s just noise, unless there’s some reason why it’s significant that
Typhon’s wife should be his sister,. and if there were some reason for that –
maybe there is but nobody has presented it yet – it would be in the </DIV>
<DIV>story and the names would just drive it home, or give the classically
educated reader a knowing smile.<BR> </DIV>
<DIV>So, what do you think are the implications of Tartarus actually being Pas’s
father? He must be hiding right? I know, he’s Father Inire!
When you play this game there’s no place to stop until there’s nothing left of
what Wolfe actually wrote.</DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR>> Against this positive evidence that Typhon and Echidna are
siblings we are <BR>> getting an argument that they are not siblings based
on....well, nothing I <BR>> guess aside from a gut-level feeling that incest
just ain't normal.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Actually it’s based on the fact that there is no reason in the story to
think they are siblings, just as there’s no reason to think Tartarus is Pas’s
father.<BR><BR> <BR>> It was normal for pagan gods and it was normal for
pharonic dynasties both<BR>> of which lend themselves to the literary
creation ofthe gods of the Whorl.<BR>> This has been pointed out, but without
text evidence Gerry bravely soldiers <BR>> on in his insistance that Typhon
and Echidna cannot be siblings. I guess that <BR>> level of devotion to
intransigence does warrant a bit of admiration.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You can find anything you want in the literary sources of the gods of the
Whorl. You can find incest if that’s your obsession, or you can find as
many or more outcrossings with non-human creatures if you want to go in the
opposite direction from incest. In either case you’re not paying attention
to the book Wolfe wrote, you’re writing your own book, incorporating a word here
and there from Wolfe’s and ignoring the rest.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Wolfe is writing science fiction novels, not detective stories or gnostic
scrolls. Read them as such, and a lot of the so-called “puzzles” will
evaporate.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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