<div>let me just address point 2 specifically first: the frame is the story because it is culled together from second hand sources: we never actually see our Wendigo/victim before he is pulled backwards to become a folktale in his death except through "frame" accounts.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Third: he is mistaken as a monster in the past because, if I am not mistaken, that is a cultural myth of the Indians - he is their bogey man. A man from the future who inexplicably appears is named as a Wendigo because that would be one of their few explanations. Like us seeing someone appear in the closet and labelling him the bogeyman.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The genre could certainly be unsolved mysteries. Your reading is a modern murder with no real supernatural elements. The "modern guy gets sucked back by his proximity with aliens or fairies to become a local myth" is a supernatural story of the possily unexplainable.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I'm not saying I don't like your exegesis, but I wish their was at least some hint of our narrator finding people tasty looking. Yum.</div>
<div><br><br> </div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Robert Pirkola <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rpirkola@hotmail.com" target="_blank">rpirkola@hotmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>If the straightforward interpretation of the story is all there is, several points would need </div>
<div>to be clarified to satisfy me. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>First, why does Wolfe believe that this story, unlike all the other UFO, black dog, vanishing </div>
<div>hitchhikers, etc., stories he has read, is <span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">satisfactory where the others are not? </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt"> </span></div>
<div>Second, what does Wolfe mean when he hints that "the frame is the whole story"?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Third, what would be the point of mentioning the cannibalism of the wendigo or the wendigo at all? </div>
<div>The story would work <span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">just as well in the original interpretation without the wendigo. </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt"><br></span></div>
<div>Fourth, in the Introduction to Storeys from the Old Hotel, Wolfe makes special mention of his fondness for </div>
<div><i>Sasquatch: the Apes Among Us</i> by John Green. This book, though I have not read it, is said to be a </div>
<div>definitive collection <span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">of documented Bigfoot sightings up to the time of its publication in 1978.</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">I think this helps bolster the fact that the story we read is an excerpt from a similar book </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">authored by the narrator on UFOs or such-like. This shows that the "genre" of this story is most</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">certainly that of the Unsolved Mysteries category. Of course, the most famous Sasquatch "evidence"</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">is the old Patterson-Gimlin film of the man in the ape suit ambling away from the camera before </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">giving one last over-the-shoulder glance. Thus we have the firmly established genre of the supernatural</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">myth being taken up by so-called investigators who themselves are fabricating everything but </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">the underlying myth. It could be said that the narrator of <i>Sightings at Twin Mounds</i> is engaging</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">in just such an endeavor, with his motives a tad more perverse. In fact, the cannibalism is really not essential</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">to my reading of the story either. The narrator could just as easily have murdered Robakowski</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">without eating him, but that brings us back to my third question, above. That aside, if the narrator just </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">murdered Robakowski to set up his elaborate supernatural hoax, he may have deliberately placed the "modern materials"</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">at the mound. He might then have waited until the materials were discovered to do his write-up of the tale, </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">that being the perfect final note for his fabricated supernatural event.</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt"><br></span></div>
<div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Fifth, Wolfe states that the UFO, etc.,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">stories that he enjoys reading and whose style he wishes to emulate</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">in <i>Sightings at Twin Mounds</i> are "supposedly factual". If he is indeed writing a story in that "style" it</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">stands to reason that his story as well would be made up of the "supposedly factual". </span></div></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Finally, Wolfe states in the Introduction that he likes the story. The stories he comes out and says he likes</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">or is proud of are some of his richest works. E.g. <i>Beech Hill, A Solar Labyrinth, </i></span><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt"><i>Parkroads -- A Review</i>, to name</span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">a few just from <i>SftOH</i>. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Again the original interpretation is the one invited by a first reading such that it seems </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">unlikely Wolfe would be so fond </span><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">of a rather straightforward sf piece that requires only one trip through its pages </span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">unless it held greater secrets. He also says that it is an "experiment" which could account for its deviation from </span></div>
<div>the well established norms of his other prevaricating narrators.</div></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Urth Mailing List<br>To post, write <a href="mailto:urth@urth.net">urth@urth.net</a><br>
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