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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">THE
LITHOSPHERE WHALE</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">As
part of the Creature Coral, “The Lithosphere Whale” was Wolfe’s
entry in the Wofford College’s 2012 shared world. It appeared only
online.</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Here
is the entry in its entirety:</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
lithosphere whale (Physeter macrocephalus borboros) is more commonly
known as the earth whale or the wrong whale. During the great days of
whaling in the 19th Century it was called the cachalittle or
mobydirt.</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Lithosphere
whales may be divided as follows: blubber, whale leather, baleen,
spermaceti, petroleum, and fossil amber. These are the only cetaceans
known to yield the final valuable commodity. Individuals are commonly
solitary, wandering the terrestrial crust in search of food, although
pods are occasionally reported as causing earthquakes. Large bulls
may dive to a depth of three (or even four) diamond mines. They are
air breathers and must surface to breathe once or twice a fortnight.
By day, their exhaled breath is often visible for a considerable
distance; when seen, the exhalations of these whales are commonly
termed "dirt devils." In the stillness of night they are
heard as long whailings. The superstitious belief that they seek to
attract railroad trains for reproductive purposes has little basis in
fact.</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Diet
consists principally of soil squids (q.v.), although coal miners and
bomb-shelter residents are taken as well. Calves are said to dine on
earthworms, this by filling their mouths with rich soil and forcing
it out between their teeth, the worms being retained.</font></font></p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">COMMENTARY</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">:</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">This
collaborative creative world was devised in conjunction with Wofford
College’s 2012 summer writing program. Wolfe’s involvement
probably stems from his daughter Theresa Goulding’s position as
editor and compiler of the short stories, alongside figures such as
Michael Moorcock, Patrick Rothfuss, the Vandermeers, Lavie Tidhar,
and other fabulists of some renown. The overall theme seems to be
simply fabulous creatures, </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">most</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
ecologically tied to the environment (such as the lithosphere or the
stratosphere). The majority are simply absurd creature entries.
There is a large somewhat interactive drawing of the creatures which
can be found below. </font></font>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Wolfe’s
clearly relies on some of the whaling details from Melville’s </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><i>Moby
Dick,</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
and takes the classification scheme as a serious blending of the deep
terrain and a creature, since types include petroleum and fossil
amber. It fictionalizes the dusty exhalation of the beast as a
“dirt devil” and borders on absurdity as well with the
reproductive talk of railroad trains. Its passive digestion of
strained earth resembles the manner in which a real whale would
simply passively sift through swallowed water for nutrients. Physeter
Macrcephalus is indeed the Sperm Whale, and borboros could refer to
borborygmos, or loud intestinal sounds audible externally that can
precede blockage or distension. Lithosphere is the hard outer layer
of the earth and is composed of the Greek element lithos, meaning
rock. Another name for the sperm whale is the cachalot, from the
Spanish and Portugeuse for root word meaning “big head”, and
Wolfe puns on this by calling the Lithosphere Whale the cachalittle.
Besides the clear influence of Melville on the entry </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">and
a possible allusion to Jules Verne</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">,
it is a lighthearted romp with little relationship to most of Wolfe’s
other fiction.</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">CONNECTION
TO OTHER WORKS:</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%" align="left"><a name="_GoBack3"></a>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none"> Wolfe’s
contributions to a shared universe can be counted easily on one hand.
One foray can be found in the two stories set in the shared world of
Liavek which bookend </span></span></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><i><span style="text-decoration:none">Storeys
from the Old Hotel</span></i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">
and the miscellaneous stories which might blend into the Cthulthu
Mythos of Lovecraft. It is interesting to see so many big Fantasy
names under the auspice of one program. While some of the entries
are related to each other, the majority of them are stand-alone
miniature faux encyclopedic treatments. While it is brief and
rather uninvolved, it bears a spiritual relationship to works such as
</span></span></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><i><span style="text-decoration:none">A
Walking Tour of the Shambles</span></i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">
and </span></span></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><i><span style="text-decoration:none">Bibliomen</span></i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">
its encyclopedic approach. </span></span></font></font>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%" align="left">
RESOURCES</p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%" align="left">
Wolfe, Gene. “The Lithosphere Whale.” Shared Worlds. Woffod
College. 2012. Web. 22 April 2015.
<a href="https://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/critters/byauthor.html#gwolfe">https://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/critters/byauthor.html#gwolfe</a></p>
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