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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>
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Gerry Quinn: <BR>> > Pig appears to have carried some of Pas/Silk’s
personality, which<BR>> > became trapped when he was blinded.<BR><BR>>
> Pigs should be associated with Phaea, but there’s no obvious connection
here.<BR> <BR>> There is. The obvious connection is what you say: pigs
should be associated with Phaea. For<BR>> me the implication is that the
gods, like the cards which sometime represent them, are being<BR>> shuffled
and redealt in different combinations.</DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">But
what’s Phaea got to do with anything? She doesn’t appear to be of any
great significance – I don’t even know whether she sided with Echidna or
Pas. If we take the name Pig as a sign of Phaea’s involvement (and
remember, absolutely *everything* including any possible name he could have is
associated with one or more gods) what does it tell us? Absolutely nothing
as far as I can see. </DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">Where
are playing cards said to represent the gods? </DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none"><BR>>
> As is generally the case in Wolfe, names are atmospheric, and often tell us
something in story <BR>> > context (e.g. the animal-vegetable-mineral
naming scheme in Viron) but more abstruse references <BR>> > never tell us
anything of significance that isn’t made clear in other ways.
<BR> <BR>> I think everyone would generally agree with this, except on
your expectation that Wolfe is <BR>> writing in ways in which everything is
"Clear". If clearly written and understandable prose<BR>> is what you prefer,
I you can read Wolfe that way. But you will have to dismiss large
portions<BR>> of the text as gibberish.</DIV>
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<DIV>On the contrary, that is exactly what you do when you argue that everyone
is Father Inire or whatever. I keep pointing out how you are ignoring the
events and characters described.</DIV>
<DIV><BR> <BR>> I find Wolfe to be a deliberately mysterious writer,
prompting the reader to partial but not full <BR>> understanding for some
elements of his work. I think Wolfe has a purpose to this. It isn't just
<BR>> to confuse his readers. He leaves the focus fuzzy on subjects he
considers human intelligence too <BR>> feeble to fully grasp like the nature
of god(s), the history of the universes, etc.<BR> <BR>> We can take the
Silent Silk and Silver Silk references. Gerry, you are absolutely right that
to<BR>> off-handedly associate those names with Silenus and Silvanus would be
silly. What we would need<BR>> to make that connection would be a reference
to Faunus or Pan or Bacchus or Dionysus. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If it were a reference to Faunus *and* Dionysus, and if fauns had some
meaning in context, it might mean something. But we know where the names
Silent and Silver Silk come from anyway.</DIV>
<DIV><BR> <BR>> We could go to the suggestion that Typhon and Echidna
are siblings. Sure their names suggest it, <BR>> but that by itself wouldn't
be enough. We'd have to have more mythological support. And we have <BR>>
it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No, we’d have to have some support in the book written by Gene Wolfe.
Where is it?</DIV>
<DIV><BR> <BR>> Gene Wolfe is a man who has widely read and been deeply
steeped in mythological stories. If he<BR>> didn't expect us to guess that
Typhon and Echidna were siblings he would have given them different<BR>>
names (and/or perhaps a happy marriage). </DIV>
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<DIV>If he wanted to do this, he’d also have avoided giving the name of Typhon’s
father to his son. </DIV>
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<DIV>Or he could have, you know, actually indicated in the text somewhere that
Echidna was Typhon’s sister. In fact he would have, if for some reason
there was a point to such a revelation and he wanted to include it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>